DTB: A New Color to Paint the World
by Silvertigo
Summary: After hearing from an old friend, poisons-expert Charlie Sterne arrives in Tokyo with a large dog and a grudge. She's after a Contractor from her past with a dangerous power and a mysterious price. So is the Syndicate. When Charlie crosses paths with Hei and finds an unusual friend in Yin, she discovers the differences between enemies and allies are never black and white. Hei/OC
1. Above the Rain

A/N: First off, I want to thank you for clicking on this story! I hope you'll enjoy it.

I started working on this monster after watching the first season of Darker Than Black and falling in love with the characters. [I like to pretend the second season never happened. Suou, who?] So I'll start by saying I've tried to stay true to the Darker Than Black universe and characters. That said, I've changed a few things for the sake of _this_ story. For one, and most importantly, it's [mostly] told from the point of view of an original character named Charlotte. She's made of awesome [and sarcasm], so I hope she provides an interesting viewpoint.

Now, I know that I'm one of those people who has trouble getting invested in fan fiction that centers around an original character, but I hope you'll find that Charlotte reads like a native of the Darker Than Black world and draws you in.

Timeline: This story starts between episodes 5 and 6 during the Havoc arc, and progresses from there.

Disclaimer: I own nothing.

I'm going to go stand in a corner now. Read on.

* * *

**Darker Than Black: A New Color to Paint the World**

Chapter 1: Above the Rain

Getting off the plane was the hardest part. Watching the Tokyo skyline appear out of the clouds had finally made me realize just how drastic a change traveling to the opposite side of the world really was. Supposed business trip or not, I didn't know when I'd be returning stateside. The permanence of the situation I'd been dropped into, illusion or not, was overwhelming.

I'd never minded flying much—my dad being a pilot meant an affinity for hurtling through the sky in a giant tin can was in my blood. But I couldn't say I was disappointed the flight was over. Fifteen hours on a plane could drain anyone, no matter how comfortable the seats or delicious the food. I'd managed to get a few hours of sleep, but if the faces of my fellow passengers were anything to go by, I imagined I still looked like I'd just walked out of the zombie apocalypse. Complete with zombie dog.

If you've never had to explain to a gaggle of flight attendants that your obnoxious canine companion needs to take a walk up the aisle for a bathroom break—don't feel like you're missing anything. It's not as funny as it sounds.

I'd been lucky my employer had the connections to get Bard on the plane at all, though I was sure my harried dog would have argued otherwise had he been able to talk. He'd been excited about going for a ride in the car to get to the airport; flattered by the pat-downs at the security checkpoints; absolutely ecstatic about boarding the plane and getting the window seat; but not so sure about the whole hurtling-down-the-runway-for-takeoff thing. He'd stopped howling after the first ten minutes, but he'd sustained a high-pitched keening noise for the remainder of the flight.

We didn't make many friends.

I hoisted my carryon bag higher up on my shoulder and pulled on Bard's leash, doing my best to ignore the baffled stares we were getting from the people waiting to board at the gate. Bard was veering off towards a large potted plant, the only piece of vegetation in sight.

Tug-of-war with an Irish Wolfhound was a game I was used to losing, which was why I immediately resorted to begging: "No, Bard… Wait just a little longer. We're almost outside."

He whined, but relented and returned to my side. Figuring I only had a few minutes before he exploded, I half-ran, half-walked up the concourse, following the signs that promised to lead me to Customs. After stamping my passport, the customs agent pointed me towards baggage claim.

I led Bard into the bustling gathering area and scanned the crowd, my ears full of languages I didn't understand. I'd been told to look for someone who'd been sent to meet me, so I wasn't all that surprised to see a man holding a sign with my name on it.

"Charlotte Sterne," I said, out of breath, as Bard hauled me right past the man and toward the exit. I didn't even want to think about the sight we made; the surprise on the chauffeur's face told me enough. He watched with wide blue eyes as Bard dragged me through the crowd of gawking people towards the outside world. "Would you grab my bags, please?" I managed. "He's got to, uh… you know."

"Ah… Sure."

"Thanks! I'll just be right out—" The sliding glass doors closed behind me, cutting me off with a solid _thunk_. "Right outside…"

I looked down in time to see Bard squatting on the nearest patch of grass. Naturally, I turned my back and pretended to have no idea whose dog he was. Never mind that his leash was in my hand. Nothing to see here.

He was still going strong when the chauffeur walked through the doors pushing a trolley piled high with gray suitcases. He stopped to stare, his eyes shifting from me to the dog.

"That… _is_ a dog, right?"

"He's actually part camel. Retains water when he's nervous," I said, laughing in embarrassment.

He raised his eyebrows in what I hoped was amusement, making them nearly disappear behind his sweep of black hair. "I don't think I've ever seen one so big."

"Dog or camel?"

He snorted a laugh. "Dog. I didn't know you'd have one with you. What's his name?"

"Oh, sorry. He's Bard. I'm Charlotte—or Charlie," I added quickly. "I'll answer to both."

"Nice to meet you. I'm Li."

I switched my bag to my other arm so I could shake his outstretched hand. The moment our fingers touched, a prickling sensation netted up my forearm, making my hair stand on end. I barely had time to think anything of it before Bard finished his business and realized unfamiliar people were _everywhere_ and he was _extremely uncomfortable._ He let out a low, rumbling growl when he noticed how close Li was standing, before completely nullifying the threat by cowering behind my legs.

"Don't take it personally," I said to Li's alarmed expression. "He's all talk."

"I see!" He laughed and rubbed the back of his head uneasily. "I imagine you've both had a long day. Should we get going? Your apartment is ready."

"Apartment? I thought I'd be staying in a hotel?"

He shook his head. "The address I got is for an apartment building in Shinjuku."

"Shinjuku?" I swallowed hard and followed Li and the luggage trolley to a sedan parked on the curb. He opened one of the rear doors for me. "That's close to the Gate, isn't it?" I asked as he began lifting my suitcases into the trunk.

"Yes. I think you'll be able to see the wall from your balcony."

"Well…" I gave Bard a gentle push towards the open door, and he leaped into the backseat. "That'll be nice to wake up to every morning."

"It's not so bad," Li said. He paused and pointed at the bag slung over my shoulder. "That'll fit back here, if you want."

"That's all right. I'd rather keep this one with me."

He smiled, but not before I caught the slight downward pull at the left corner of his mouth. I slid into the car behind Bard, shoved him aside so he took up less than two-thirds of the seat, and closed the door. A few seconds later, Li sat down in the driver's seat and turned the key in the ignition. The engine grumbled to life.

Li glanced back, his eyes creased at the corners in a cheerful, slightly apologetic smile. "It's an hour's drive to Shinjuku. Is there anything you need? We can stop on the way."

"I can't think of anything right now. But I'll probably come up with a list as long as the Nile the moment I start unpacking." I gave Bard's ears a scratch when he stuck his nose in my face. The car pulled away from the curb into traffic, prompting him to crawl over me to stare out the window. "Well," I said louder, unsuccessfully trying to peer around him. His wiry, ash-colored fur tickled my nose. "I guess I'll need dog food. An entire cow, maybe."

"I don't know about a cow, but there's a pet store near your apartment."

"Perfect."

"Uh, are you—?"

"No, I'm fine." I gave Bard's rump a few hearty pats. "He's not as heavy as he looks."

"Okay…"

I sighed heavily, letting my breath gather in my chest, stretching my lungs to capacity, before letting it out. My eyes scanned the upholstered ceiling as I tilted my head back. I'd never felt so stiff before; my body was practically vibrating with the competing urges to sleep and to exercise the kinks out of my muscles. Both felt equally impossible.

When he'd had his fill of staring out the window, Bard turned himself around, vacating my lap in favor of the significantly less-bony seat cushion.

When I glanced up, Li's eyes met mine in the rearview mirror. "What brings you to Tokyo?" he asked.

"Business. Sort of." I shrugged and looked out the window, seeing and not-seeing the highway traffic. "I've travelled before, but this is my first time in Japan. It seems…" I shook my head, waiting for my jetlagged mind to provide the right word.

"Busy?" Li supplied.

I nodded, though he probably wasn't looking anymore. "Yeah. Busy."

"It can take some getting used to."

"There are so many people. How does anyone move? It just seems like everywhere you turn, a body's already there. And I haven't even really walked around yet."

"If you keep your dog with you, I don't think you'll have much of a problem getting around."

I laughed, surprised at how easily it came. "Come on, he's not that scary."

"He's the size of a small horse."

"Are there horses here?"

"Not in Tokyo."

"But, somewhere in Japan, there are horses."

He spared me a sidelong look, his mouth upturned in an amused grin. "Yes?"

I laughed again. "You sound unsure."

"Well, I've never actually seen a horse here, but I haven't travelled outside Tokyo much, either. Why the interest? Do you ride?"

"When I can." The rhythmic tap of the turn signal measured out the seconds as I took a cleansing breath. "It was more of a childhood hobby, but I miss it sometimes. I guess that's why I got Bard. He's like a step down from a pony."

Bard perked up at his name, his floppy ears twitching to attention. I tried to ignore his obvious disappointment when all I had to offer was a scratch under the chin. The brat.

"Have you ever ridden?" I asked, glancing up at the mirror again.

"Not really. It wasn't a very popular sport where I grew up."

"Where was that?"

"China. I'm a student."

"Ah, well this is lucky—the first person I meet is another foreigner. What are you studying?"

A short pause preceded his answer, almost like he didn't get the question often. "Astronomy."

I felt my eyebrows shoot towards my hairline. Suddenly hyperaware of fidgeting, I pressed my hands together between my knees. Bard looked up at me and whined. "But… aren't the original stars covered up now?"

Li nodded once, his mouth set in a grim line. He glanced back at me from the corner of his eye, only briefly meeting my gaze. When his attention had shifted back to the road, he said, "We can't see them, but that doesn't mean they aren't there."

"I guess that's true." I pressed my tongue to the roof of my mouth and reminded myself to breathe. "So I guess you know all about the rumors? About the new stars."

"Which rumors might those be?"

"Some people think they represent the lives of—" I cut myself off and cleared my throat, "—the lives of certain people. And when a star falls, it means one of them has died."

"Mm. That's a popular one."

"So?" I hedged, leaning forward. I tried to work some levity into my voice. "Is it true, Mr. Astronomer?"

"I couldn't tell you," Li said, matching my tone. "But they say anything is possible with the Gate. The stars could represent anything."

I reclined against the seat, my lungs aching. I felt winded, as if I'd been holding my breath. Ha. Probably had been. Only just arrived in Tokyo, and already worrying about the stars. I hadn't even seen them yet.

My brain was still wrapping itself around my trip through time. I hadn't time travelled, exactly, but hey, same concept. My plane had taken off at six in the morning, I'd been up in the air for twelve hours, and then arrived in Tokyo at ten that same morning. I'd only lost four hours—granted, it still felt like twelve. I had lots of time to pass before I'd get my first look at the stars over Tokyo.

I spent the rest of the ride staring out the eastern window, hoping to catch a glimpse of the wall surrounding the Gate while I tried not to doze off. When it did finally appear on the horizon, I only caught intermittent glimpses of it between the skyscrapers rising out of Tokyo's metropolitan center.

"That's it, huh?" I murmured.

"That's it," Li said.

The wall blended in with the clouds behind it, disguising itself as part of the horizon. Taken at a glance, the wall camouflaged itself so well that the space beyond the Tokyo skyline looked empty. Who could have guessed at the ruin and desolation it concealed?

"Does your work involve the Gate?"

"Not directly," I said, glued to the window. "Honestly, I'll be just fine if I never have to get any closer than this."

"True for all of us."

Something in his voice made me look up, eyes probing the rearview mirror for some clue hidden in his expression. But he'd focused on the road, and we didn't speak again until we'd reached the pet shop.

Li waited in the car. I took Bard in with me and told him to pick something. The shop seemed to be geared towards smaller pets—birds, rabbits, cats, and the like. The dog food they did have only came in bags no larger than ten pounds. I bought five, figuring I'd have time to go out and buy more before five days were up.

The apartment building was thankfully nearby. It was tall, like a tower, and looked new. The way it gleamed in the sun… it almost looked as if it were made of the same reflective metal as the wall. My stomach clenched at the similarity, but I tried not to let myself dwell on it. Instead, I focused on climbing out of the car and wondered how much money my employer had sunk into a place like this.

Li, mostly silent now, helped me get my bags inside. The woman sitting behind the front desk handed me a room key and, in broken English, said, "Top floor."

I laughed in disbelief, prompting a congratulatory smile from Li.

"Swanky," he said.

I shook my head. "Something."

The elevator was one of those fancy ones with a security box over the illuminated panel of buttons. I had to swipe my card before the doors closed and began their ascent to the twentieth floor.

"Maybe I should be trying to land a job working for your boss," Li said, grinning.

"I don't know about that—he's a little unconventional."

"Oh, well, in that case…"

I laughed and shook my head. "Joking aside, I'd be happy to introduce you. Whenever he makes an appearance."

"Really?" A smile affected by surprise lightened his expression. "That'd be great, thanks!"

The doors dinged open and, a few minutes later, I was standing in the middle of the marble-tiled foyer of the fanciest apartment I'd ever seen. Although I'd paused underneath the ridiculously large chandelier suspended from the ceiling, Bard, considerably less impressed, headed straight for the kitchen. Once he'd reached counter height—for the record, about six months—it hadn't taken him long to figure out he could work the sink faucet like a water fountain. Not the most hygienic method of hydration, but it saved me the trouble of constantly refilling a bucket-sized water bowl.

"Thanks for your help, Li."

"It's no problem." When we clasped hands for the final time, the fine hair along my arm stood up as if I'd just swiped a balloon across my skin. "We'll probably be seeing more of each other. I've been hired to drive you around. Wherever, whenever."

"Good! Maybe you can tell me more about these new stars."

"Mm." He bent at the waist in a slight bow and moved for the door. "Happily. Goodbye, Miss Sterne."

I waved as the door closed after him.

Alone, I set my duffle bag down on the plush carpet and walked off in the same direction as Bard. I walked into the granite-countered kitchen fully expecting to see Bard drowning himself in the sink, but the room was empty.

"Bard?" How did almost two hundred pounds of dog disappear in the space of a few seconds? "Bard, come here!"

A bark sounded from the end of the hallway branching off the opposite side of the foyer. Assuming he'd found a bed I'd promptly need to reclaim, I took a suitcase in each hand and lugged them down the hallway.

Halfway there, the smell hit me. "The hell…?" I dropped my bags, ignoring that I'd probably broken something, and ran to the doorway. The sight that greeted me stopped me in my tracks.

Bard was stretched out across the end of a king-sized bed with his head resting in a blonde man's lap. Smoke curled towards the ceiling from the cigarette perched between the fingers of the man's right hand. Bright blue eyes twinkling, he looked up as if surprised to see me and smiled.

"Ah. Hello, lovely. Where's your bag of horrors?"

For two painfully long seconds, my jaw hung open in silence. "November?"

He laughed and batted a hand at me. "Jack will do."

"Put that out!"

"What, this?" He lifted the cigarette and took a long drag. After holding it in for a few seconds, he tilted his head towards the ceiling and exhaled a gray cloud. "Wish I could, darling. You know how it goes."

"Then open a window, you ass!" I held my breath and crossed to the other side of the room. The curtains were already open to let in the morning sunlight; with the smoke hanging in the air, the room looked as if it were bathed in a golden fog. "I have to sleep in here, you know," I grumbled, throwing the latch on one of the windows and pushing it open.

When I turned around, Jack was staring at me like I'd grown a second head. He frowned and raised an eyebrow, though he didn't bother concealing the levity in his voice. "I'm sensing some hostility here."

I crossed my arms. "Is that all you're sensing?"

"Someone needs a nap."

"Put that out, or leave."

"All right, all right." He made a show of taking one more exaggeratedly long pull before propelling himself off the bed and into the adjoining bathroom. He dropped the cigarette into the toilet, looked at me, and used his foot to flush. "There. All gone. Now stop with the glare of death, please."

"How'd you even get in here?"

"Sneakily." Smirking, he stuck his hands in his pockets and strode towards me. I refused to uncross my arms, even when he came to a stop so close we were almost touching. Likewise, he kept his hands confined to his pockets. At nearly a head taller than me, I had to crane my neck back just to meet his eyes. "Relax, Charlie. It's safe here. Chose it myself."

"Where are you staying?"

"One floor down. I can be here in an instant if anything happens. All you have to do is call. Or stomp around—the floors don't cancel out sound very well. I'll hear when you sneeze." A smug grin curled the corners of his mouth. "And when you shower. And when your robe hits the floor."

I delivered a swift punch to his shoulder.

He absorbed it without batting an eye. "I have a good ear for nudity."

"No."

"Really, I do."

"No."

"I didn't ask a question, did I? Unless you're telepathic now." He waggled his eyebrows.

"Bard." I looked around Jack so I could see my dog. He was still sprawled across the bed, but he alerted to his name. "Bard, heel."

"Stay," Jack said.

"Heel!"

"Stay."

Bard put his head down on his paws and whined.

Huffing in annoyance, I punched Jack again, this time connecting with both shoulders at once. It was enough to make him stumble back a step, but he recovered his balance quickly.

"Not a very good attack dog, is he?" Jack chuckled. "Should've gone with a Shepherd instead."

Rather than agree—which, really, was the only thing I could do—I changed the subject. "Has there been any news?"

He frowned, his eyes going soft before he shook his head. "No. Nothing since that one blip on the radar."

Hoping he wouldn't see my disappointment, I looked down and sighed. "Well. I still want to prepare a few—"

I cut myself off when he wrapped his arms around me. I held my breath, but not for the smell of smoke; with the fresh air from the window, it was beginning to dissipate.

"You're okay," he murmured, his breath ghosting across my ear. I nodded against his shoulder and forced myself to relax. As the tension leeched from my aching muscles, I freed my arms from where they were pressed between us and encircled his waist. Jack was warm and solid, just as he always had been.

"I'm glad you're here."

He laughed quietly. "I know. I told you you wouldn't have to do this alone."

I didn't realize how hard I was clinging to him until I felt him try to take a breath. Immediately, I loosened the circle of my arms. He must have noticed, but he let the moment pass and didn't speak again until I took a step back several seconds later.

"This boss of yours… I've met him. He's quite the gentleman."

"Is he, now?" I drawled. "A gentleman? With an ear for nudity?"

"Perhaps. I couldn't say. Though it does seem to be a skill exclusive to MI-6."

"I see. And I suppose he talks like, _Oh, ahoy there, mate. Bloody hell and jolly bollocks._"

Jack looked horrified. "Heaven's, no."

I pointed up at him, unable to stop my burst of laughter. "Your face right now."

"Such strong language from a lady."

"Bloody hell and jolly—?"

"No." He leapt forward and clapped a hand over my mouth before I could finish. "You're a travesty."

I wrenched his hand away. "Oh, come off it and bring my luggage in here."

"That's better. But might I suggest waiting a while for the room to air out? Smells like some inconsiderate ass was smoking in here."

I feigned a shocked expression. "My boss was here?"

Jack smiled and put an arm around my shoulders, steering me into the hallway. "I thought I told you? He's a sneaky bastard."

"Where've you been, anyway? I couldn't get ahold of you the last couple days."

"In Romania, transporting some very valuable cargo. Speaking of which, I'm afraid I have to run soon. Not back to Romania, but—"

"More super secret _foreign minister_ stuff?"

"You could say that." He sighed and raised his eyes to the ceiling. "I need to go recover said valuable cargo. Again. And would you believe the Japanese police are actually having me followed?"

"How's that going?"

"For them? Darling," he said, pulling me more tightly to his side and leaning in close, "do you see any police hanging around?"

* * *

_My bag of horrors._ Jack had started calling it that back when we were both still at Cambridge. I'd hated it at first, but the name stuck. Now, even when I was alone, I found myself thinking of it that way.

An alcove off of the main living area had proven the best place to unpack my little bag. It was out of sight until you were practically standing in it, and I could close it off with a pair of shutter-doors to keep Bard out of danger. I'd pulled a tall, stand-alone shelf out of the pantry to set my supplies and instruments on, along with a waist-high table from the library—yes, the apartment had a library—to use as a workstation.

I'd divided the shelf space in two, with the upper-half occupied by an array of flasks and vials all carefully labeled and arranged by function: reagents; concentrator, corrupter, and distillation agents; various herbs, toxins, and extracts; beakers and test tubes; and several boxes of litmus paper. Glass vials of poisons and antidotes I'd already created occupied the lower shelves.

I bypassed all of them and unzipped the only compartment of my bag of horrors I hadn't unpacked yet. First-aid kit in hand, I closed the alcove's doors and walked into the kitchen to face Jack. Behind me, Bard's toenails clicked on the hardwood flooring.

I'd been up on the roof when Jack called. Stargazing. Over the phone, I hadn't taken his _help-me-I-almost-died-in-an-extremely-unpleasant-way_ spiel seriously. It was impossible to tell when he was joking anymore. Honestly, I still didn't know if he was joking or not. Granted, he had a sizable stab wound to his right forearm, but it wasn't life threatening. Far from it. It wasn't even bleeding that much anymore.

I peered over his shoulder into the sink to make sure the water was running clear before handing him a clean towel. "How'd you get stabbed?"

"Man with a knife," he said. Gingerly, he laid the towel over his forearm and pressed.

I watched his expression for signs of pain. I knew how badly wounds like that hurt, but he was either concealing it, or it just wasn't registering. "Man with a knife," I repeated. "That tells me absolutely nothing."

"False. It tells you I was stabbed by a man and not a woman. It also tells you I was stabbed by a knife and not a pair of scissors."

"Right. Sorry." I motioned for him to follow me to the dining table. Since he was still applying pressure to the wound, I pulled out a chair for him and placed mine directly across from it. Our knees were touching to start with, but, by the time I'd pulled his arm towards me and gotten the angle right, our legs were pressed together like pieces of a jigsaw puzzle.

"Your pants are damp," I said when I felt the cool moisture against my knees. "Did you get rained on?"

"A little."

I narrowed my eyes, but didn't point out that the night sky had been clear. "Why didn't you go to a hospital?" I asked. "Better yet, doesn't MI-6 have its own doctor on call?"

"Neither option was very attractive."

I could hear the potential for a joke there, but I didn't look up to encourage him. Instead, I focused on gathering the tools I would need: cotton swabs, antibiotic cream, sutures, and a clean dressing. Blood, diluted to a dull pink, was beginning to stain through the towel. I carefully peeled the towel off and set it aside.

"You're lucky this is just soft tissue."

"Oh, yes, very lucky."

I stole a glance up at him as I put on a pair of sanitary gloves. Even after everything that had happened, he still spoke with the same familiar effortlessness that had always made him so easy to talk to. "You know…" I began, taking his wrist in my hand and pulling it towards me. He leaned forward, resting the elbow of his other arm on his knees. "I wasn't expecting our reunion to happen like this."

"Disappointed?"

"No." I smiled, but couldn't sustain it for more than a second. "I guess I didn't really expect it to happen at all."

He sighed. "If only everyone could have such low expectations of me."

"Low expectations and no expectations are a little different." I squeezed a glob of the antibiotic ointment onto my fingers and dabbed it between the layers of separated tissue. Air hissed through Jack's teeth. "A lot like sending the odd letter is different from talking face to face."

"Ouch."

"Oh, you have feelings now?"

"No, I mean that hurts."

Startled, I paused in my ministrations to peer up at his face. Appropriately icy blue eyes stared back at me. A hint of a smile played around his mouth, helping to temper my sudden embarrassment.

"Sorry. That just slipped out."

He laughed, but it tapered off when I picked up the sutures. "You haven't changed at all, you know."

"You have."

Before I realized how those two words would sound, Jack's shoulders stiffened and he sat back as if I'd just taken a swing at him.

"That's not what I meant," I said quickly. "It's a good thing. The last time I saw you, you were so… cold. I see more of your old self in you now."

He looked skeptical. "How so?"

"Well, for starters, you've got a sense of humor again."

"Hm. Well, I suppose with all the people I've killed, it was either laugh or go mad."

My hands froze, going rigid halfway through tying off a suture. I looked up and stared at him.

"Relax. That was a joke." He lifted one shoulder in a half-shrug. "Sort of."

Unable to decide if I should believe him or not, I simply shook my head and went back to patching him up. _Just one of those Contractor things_, I decided. I'd never harbored much hope for being able to read him like I used to, though I had to admit he was more expressive than I'd anticipated. Maybe our years apart had mollified him.

"Did you get your cargo back?" I asked.

"Yes and no."

"I saw a star fall earlier." I eyeballed him, but he was watching my hands as I closed his wound, and his face gave nothing away. "Wasn't your doing, was it?"

He exhaled loudly—not quite a sigh. "And here I thought you could _distract_ me."

My eyes widened at the uncharacteristic melancholy in his tone. "You feel guilty about it?"

"No, of course not. I made the rational decision and eliminated the threat."

"The rational decision," I repeated. "Was it your _cargo_ who stabbed you?"

"Unfortunately, no. It wasn't."

"So your cargo was a Contractor, and you had to kill this Contractor to eliminate a threat. And sometime before or after that, you were stabbed. By a man with a knife."

He stared at me with a vaguely surprised expression. "I'm going to stop telling you things."

"You make it so easy to guess at what happened," I said, smug smile firmly in place. "It's your own fault."

He looked thoroughly unimpressed as I set the needle and sutures aside. I applied a dressing, making sure not to wrap it so tightly that his fingers would go numb, and sat back to admire my handiwork.

"Thanks," he said.

As if on cue, a knock sounded at the door. In a belated warning, Bard leapt to his feet and let out a low, groaning howl.

Jack stood and patted Bard on the head on his way to the door. "Easy, Lassie."

"You my butler now?" I called after him.

He swatted a hand at me over his shoulder. "It's probably April and July."

"Who?" I followed him out of the kitchen and stood behind him in the foyer when he opened the door. On the other side, a dark-skinned woman with amber eyes and blue hair was holding the hand of a small, blonde child.

"He said you were here," said the woman, lifting the child's hand. "Decade wants to see us."

"Right." Jack turned back to me, patting his pockets. "I have something for you."

Seeming to notice me for the first time, the woman leaned around him and smiled. "Who is this?"

"An old friend."

"Friend?" the child monotoned.

"Yes. A novel concept, I know. This is Charlie. Charlie, meet April and July."

I waved awkwardly. "Hello."

"Here." Jack put a folded slip of paper in my hands and closed my fingers around it. "It's hers. Use it to find out whatever you can," he said earnestly, holding my eyes in his icy gaze. "And, Charlie, if you ever come across messier code BK-201, just run. All right?"

Startled and unsure what he was talking about, I gave a quick nod. "All right."

"Good." Then, like a highlight from an old movie reel of our lives, he took my face in his hands, placed a delicate kiss on my forehead, and said, "Be safe."

I stood there in shock for a long time after the door had closed behind him.

* * *

A/N: Congratulations, you made it to the finish line! Thanks for reading this far, guys.

Okay, I'm going to assume we all know how November's story arc ends, so for those of you who weren't expecting this Hei/OC fic to feature SO MUCH NOVEMBER right off the bat... Worry not! Next chapter, Charlie meets Hei. Sort of.

Also, not all the chapters are going to be this ridiculously long. I just wanted to give you guys something to sink your teeth into to kick the story off.

Again, thanks for reading! Love it? Hate it? See a typo? Share your thoughts and leave a review, please!

BONUS: Metal Airplanes – Matthew Good


	2. Tonight's Defense, Part 1

A/N: Many _many _thanks to those who've read, followed, and reviewed! You guys are awesome! :]

Sorry it took me a week and a half to get this chapter up. My external hard drive died [read: I tripped over it] so I've been trying to salvage that between doing schoolwork and writing this story. Unfortunately, my schedule doesn't look like it'll be improving much, but I'm going to do my best to update this thing at least once a week. Basically, I'll be posting chapters as I crank them out. This chapter was originally almost 7,000 words, but two different things happen, and I felt like there needed to be some separation. So there are two parts. And since I made you guys wait so long for this one, I'll be posting Part 2 late Saturday night.

Read on, and I'll see you at the bottom!

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Chapter 2: Tonight's Defense, Part 1

I'd been able to follow the map for a few miles, but I gave up deciphering the unfamiliar street names after I realized I'd been circling the same city block for the better part of an hour. Since then, I'd pulled my nose from the folds of the map and walked due east towards the Gate. It was easier. All I had to do was look for the shine of the wall beyond the city-proper.

Since I'd elected to travel by foot, I wanted to blend in—not an easy thing with a wolfhound for a walking companion. Luckily, he served as more of a deterrent than an invitation to start a conversation. And for my part, I'd dressed to attract as little attention as possible: dark jeans, nondescript gray t-shirt, black messenger bag, braided hair with a few wispy pieces to hide the scar in front of my right ear. I'd entertained the idea of dying my hair black, just for that much more anonymity, but was glad I hadn't. There were more brunette heads bobbing about than I'd expected.

Assuming I was successful in not speaking to anyone, my face was the only thing that would give me away as a foreigner. Fair complexion and pale, almond-shaped eyes—decidedly not Japanese.

Bard plodded along beside me, tall enough that I could walk with my hand resting on his shoulders. I'd put a leash on him, but it hung slack in the small space between us.

I pulled out the slip of paper Jack had given me—right before he kissed me goodbye. I wrinkled my nose because I still hadn't figured out what to make of the gesture. It resonated in my mind like an echo, calling back to the way things had been before he changed. I'd spent the last few nights trying to remember if he'd kissed me like that the day he left. I'd decided he hadn't—that had been a day of severed ties and lines drawn in the sand. An ending. Which was why the kiss had me so rattled. How had that old habit—something I thought he'd set aside—resurfaced so easily?

I shook my head to dispel the cobwebs of memory and focused on the paper in my hand. The code _DT-812_ and a pair of coordinates were scrawled across the page in Jack's messy script—becoming a Contractor obviously hadn't improved his penmanship. His investigative skills, however, were another story. I'd been squeezing all my contacts at the observatories in the States and at Cambridge for reports of stars that had formed eight years ago between July and September. There'd been some promising leads over the years, but they'd ultimately gotten me nowhere. However Jack had managed to get his hands on such valuable information—my mind jumped to Li, the student astronomer—I owed him. Especially if it was good. And, although I doubted he'd intended for me to go looking for her alone, I'd know just how good the intel was very soon.

Still clutched in my hand, the edges of the paper fluttered in a weak breeze I could barely feel. I looked up and saw the wall towering over me, so immense that it seemed to be leaning in, as if studying me as closely as I was studying it. The nearer I got, the more I became convinced the wall, maybe the Gate itself, was breathing. Not so much as if it were inhaling and exhaling… more like it was pushing and pulling. Like waves on the shore. And I was caught in its ebb and flow, washing in with the tide.

I slipped the note back into my pocket and gave Bard's ears a scratch.

There weren't many other people on the street now. They'd thinned out, all but disappeared, as proximity to the wall increased and the sun sank towards the horizon at my back. Most of the buildings out this far looked like old, rundown residences—I didn't think the eastern edge of Shinjuku stood much of a chance of being a business hotspot. Anything that had been here and survived the Gate's appearance had probably been abandoned years ago.

By the time I reached the truly deserted district lying in the shadow of the wall, the sun was setting, and a palpable gloom hung over the ruined city. Gutted buildings loomed like skeletons in the murk, their rusting girders clawing at the air like exposed bones. Abandoned as it was now, it was hard to believe people had ever thrived here. Dozens of cars, their doors left open to expose the decaying innards within, lined the streets. Everywhere I looked, I found some remnant of the ghost town's former residents. Toppled food carts and collapsing storefronts, their windows bare and gaping like pairs of staring eyes, made the sidewalks nearly impassable. It was desolate and empty now; yet, at some point not too long ago, this place had looked exactly like the rest of Shinjuku.

"Anyone else around?" I asked Bard.

He lifted his head, nostrils flaring as he tested the air. After about ten seconds of this, he turned his brown, human-like eyes to me and shook his head.

"Guess we better keep walking, then." I unclipped his leash and continued down the rubble-strewn street. Bard bounded away from me, alternating between lowering his nose to the ground and sniffing the wind. I trailed him from a short distance. I was doing my best to create a mental map of the way we'd come, but I already knew Bard's nose was what would later lead us back to civilization. My sense of direction rivaled only my skills as a cook. Which were nonexistent.

DT-812 had last been active somewhere near here. I had nothing of hers that might give Bard a scent to follow, so my only plan was to wander. Maybe we'd bump into her, or, failing that, someone who knew where I could find her. It was up to the Fates. But that wasn't to say I was completely helpless. I was armed with two handguns. One was a twenty-two I'd modified to fire special darts I'd prepared beforehand. The other was a revolver I'd inherited.

We walked. About a hundred paces in, Bard paused and stared off at the wall with his ears pricked. I turned to listen. The faint drone of a siren, some kind of an alarm, drifted in on the wind.

"What's that mean?" I frowned and scanned what I could see of the wall for signs of a disturbance. "Is that PANDORA?"

Bard snorted and trotted away. I lingered a few seconds longer, still looking, before going after him. Eventually, the dull hum of the alarm stopped.

The light lingered somewhere between half-day and half-night much longer than usual. Was it just that the wall was reflecting the sun as it sank to the western horizon, or had being so near the Gate started to affect my sense of time? We wandered the maze of the abandoned city as dark slowly fell, taking so many detours down side streets and back alleys that I wasn't sure which direction we were headed anymore. Bard, though, seemed sure of every step he took.

When Bard suddenly stopped, his stilt-like legs freezing midstride, my adrenaline surged. He glanced back at me, catching my eye before purposefully looking up at the shattered second story windows of the building directly across from us.

"How many?" I hissed.

He wagged his tail. Once. Twice. Then, without waiting for my cue, he threw his head back and howled.

Two faces, one at each window, appeared behind the shards of broken glass still stubbornly clinging to their frames like jagged teeth. From this distance, I couldn't make out any details—just eyes, noses, and mouths.

Figuring there was no point in making small talk, I shouted, "Are you Contractors?"

Silence. Then low, swelling laughter. "Where do you think you are, sweetheart?" A male voice from the window on the right.

My arms tensed. Ever so slowly, my right hand traveled to the concealed holster on my hip. "Maybe you can help me. I'm looking for someone."

"We're not in a helping mood."

"I can make it worth your while!" After a long pause with no response—which I took to mean they were interested and I should continue—I said, "I'm Charlotte Sterne."

The person in the left window stood up, revealing a rather androgynous silhouette that was neither short nor tall, slim nor heavy. From what I could see, what little hair there was was cropped close to the head. "What did you say?"

I raised my eyebrows. The voice was female.

"I'm Charlotte Sterne," I repeated. A glance at Bard, his hackles raised and head lowered, told me he was on the defensive. The faint echo of alarm bells going off in my head threatened to rattle my composure. I reminded myself that any action I took now would be premature. I'd come here for a reason, and I wasn't going to screw it up before I even got the ball rolling. "Does my name mean something to you?"

"Not to me," the woman shouted, her voice a rough mixture of annoyance and intrigue. "But I know a guy who knows a guy."

"Will you take me to him?" Another long pause. I hoped my voice didn't give away how hard my heart was suddenly pounding. It thudded in my ears like a drumbeat.

The man turned his head and said something too low for me to catch. A few seconds later, the woman's silhouette disappeared from the window. I called Bard to me, my hand still hovering near my gun. He rose to his full height, head up and fur standing on end, adding to his bulk. His eyes were nearly level with my shoulders.

The shape of the woman appeared in the doorway. "Nice pony," she said, stepping over the metal and busted glass that littered the sidewalk. She paused once out on the street, and I looked her up and down in the sparse light. She was of average height, athletically built, though her black fatigues masked most of her body shape. Her hair, probably a dark shade of blonde, looked like it had been shaved off not long ago, and was just beginning to grow back. Her eyes were dark, recessed into her skull in sharp contrast with her protruding cheekbones. Compared to the rest of her, her face was oddly feminine.

When we were done sizing each other up, she sneered and turned away. Obviously unimpressed. I narrowed my eyes, but resisted the urge to express the same sentiment.

She set off down the street at a brisk pace. "Let's go, princess."

I shared a look with Bard. In our mutual distaste, we walked after the woman. She seemed sure of her path, and never once glanced back to see if I was behind her. Maybe she could hear the echo of my footsteps following her.

She probably just didn't care. Contractors were like that.

I unconsciously placed my hand on Bard's shoulders and knotted my fingers in his wiry hair. It was a habit I'd fallen into instead of using a leash; even though the leash made other people feel better, the physical connection was enough to keep him at my side. Now, though, I felt more like a freefalling skydiver clinging to a parachute release. As if falling through a wall of gray clouds, I didn't know what was coming, how close we were to hitting the ground, how much danger I'd gotten us into. I just knew that, probably sooner rather than later, the time was going to come when I would have to use my safety net and run.

The woman led us to a long, low building. An abandoned warehouse with high, rectangular windows with glassless frames. She took us in through the loading bay, where one of pull-down garage doors was standing open. Voices floated out on the night air, low and droning. She leapt onto the loading platform and walked inside. After a moment's hesitation, Bard and I did the same.

Instant regret.

We were interrupting some kind of meeting. Three men and two women were sitting on overturned crates in a circle. In the center, two more men were standing back to back. They looked like twins, except one of them was emitting a faint, blue glow.

My shoulders stiffened. Reflexively, I froze, standing midway between the gaping exit and the Contractors. They all turned to look at me, their expressions a mix of mild interest and annoyance.

"Found her," the woman said simply. She stood on the edge of the circle and crossed her arms.

The two men standing within the ring of people turned, their backs still pressed together, so the Contractor with his red, glowing eyes was staring me in the face. "That's not entirely correct, is it?"

The woman scowled. "What?"

"She found you."

"Whatever."

Like the flame blowing out on a candle, the blue glow died away, and the twin standing at the Contractor's back wafted away in a cloud of smoke. No longer obscured by the Synchrotron radiation, I got a clear look at him.

His black hakama and white haori made him seem bulkier than he probably actually was. He was tall; even from this distance, I could tell he towered over me. His black hair was tied into a ponytail. Wisps of it came loose and framed his dark eyes as he stepped out of the circle. Carefully, deliberately, he drew a katana from the scabbard on his hip.

I took a step back, ready to run.

"Don't be alarmed," he said in a honeyed voice. "I have no intention of harming you. This is my price."

Half-turned towards the exit, I watched as he took the hilt in both hands and leveled the sword in front of him.

"Kendo. Did you know there are seven basic kata when using a long-sword?" He raised the sword over his head, took three steps forward, and brought the blade down in a sweeping motion. "_Ippon-me_," he explained. "The first kata. It is strange without a _shitachi_ to work with, but an imagined opponent is enough."

A low, continuous growl rumbled in Bard's chest. The sound of it vibrated against my hand.

"Who are you?" I asked.

"My name is Kane." With smooth fluidity, he took several steps back before advancing for a second time. The tip of the sword whistled through the air, cutting down an invisible enemy. "That dog. It was one of her experiments, right? Long-lived for a wolfhound."

I kept my distance, well out of range of the sparkling blade, and didn't answer. "I take it you're close to her."

"Yes, you could say that." For the casual way he spoke, he might have been taking a stroll and discussing the weather. "She's told me all about you and that pretty-boy Brit. I think it's all very interesting."

"What's interesting?"

"Your relationship to her, of course! Though you're not nearly as attractive as she makes you sound." He paused his remuneration long enough to meet my gaze and smile. It was like a snake opening its mouth to reveal the venom dripping from its fangs. "You're too pale for me. And too tall. I favor petite women—I find they're easier to throw around."

I clenched my teeth and felt my jaw pop. "I'm so disappointed."

The woman in fatigues uncrossed her arms and took a step towards me. If the threat wasn't clear enough, her eyes flashed red. "Watch your mouth," she snapped. When Bard's growl increased in volume, she angrily jerked her thumb at him. "And shut that dog up."

"You're all Contractors?" I asked, ignoring her.

Kane laughed, a sound like glass shattering. "My my, you are clever."

"Where's Hemlock?"

"She's not here, obviously. When that MI-6 agent showed up in Tokyo, she told me you probably wouldn't be far behind. So she made herself scarce and left you a welcoming committee." He brought the sword down in a killing strike. The blade hung in the air for a moment before he spread his arms as if inviting me in for a hug. "Welcome to Hell's Gate, Charlotte Sterne. Will you be staying long?"

"As long as it takes for her to come out of the shadows." I narrowed my eyes and stole a glance at the still-seated circle of Contractors silently watching. Not one of them had moved to get up since I arrived. The whole thing was strange. "She ran away with her tail between her legs. It's pathetic."

"Did you not hear me, princess?" the woman shouted, her eyes bulging. She started to advance on me, but came up short at Kane's warning.

"Stay where you are, Lyme." His smile was gone.

"Did you hear what she just said?"

"Yes. But remember your orders."

I swallowed hard and locked eyes with the woman. She clearly took it as a taunt—her hands balled into fists at her sides—but she didn't take another step. _What orders_, I wondered. _From Kane? Or from Hemlock, the Contractor I was hunting?_

My eyes widened as my brain struggled with the pieces. For a moment, just a brief flash, I thought I could see how everything fit together. But it was like trying to look at an image through opaque glass. The shape was there, but the details were lost to me.

Kane's voice pulled me back. "You'd do well to remember just how plentiful the shadows are in this city, Miss Sterne. And an unfamiliar city at that," he said. "You might need to pull out that map to find your way back to Shinjuku."

Something in my chest froze. I had to remind myself to breathe. My map was folded up in my pocket with Jack's note. I hadn't looked at it in more than an hour.

Kane smiled. "We have eyes everywhere."

I struggled to work moisture back into my mouth. "Since she knew I was coming, did she leave a message for me?"

"Afraid not."

I nodded, more to myself than anything. I was committed now. I had to take myself out of this free-fall. Serenely as I could, I met Kane's black eyes and returned his smile. "In that case, I'd like to leave one for her."

Hours of practice and endless repetition meant I had my gun free of its holster and aimed squarely at the Lyme's chest in a fraction of a second. Before my heart had completed a beat, I'd pulled the trigger.

Lyme cried out in surprise and stumbled back a step. Immediately, I adjusted my aim and lined the sights up with Kane's exposed neck. This time, I didn't fire.

When Lyme realized it wasn't a bullet that had hit her, but a dart, she screamed and ripped it out. "Bitch!" she screeched. "This is poison!"

Kane slid his katana back into its scabbard and heaved a sigh, blithely ignoring my gun. "And now you must go to Hemlock for an antidote." He threw me a narrow-eyed glare. "Very clever, Miss Sterne. Very clever. But I'm afraid this ploy isn't going to work."

Lyme, suddenly out of breath, looked at him in barely-restrained horror. "What? Kane, I have to—"

The shadow that materialized behind her pulled the blade of a katana across her throat. As she crumpled to her knees, hands clutching futilely at the wash of blood gushing from her neck, Kane's mirror image came into focus. The clone grinned at me and said, "This might have worked if you'd shot someone I actually care about. Unfortunately, that isn't anyone here."

The clone disintegrated into dust, dispersing like steam. The other Contractors continued to look on silently, as if incapable of reaction.

"However," the real Kane said, drawing his sword again as the blue glow faded. He began the first kata with cool efficiency. "Message received."

Too rattled to focus properly, I pretended not to see Lyme twitching on the floor, nor the pool of blood spreading outwards. I checked my aim and fired at Kane.

He deflected the dart as if swatting away a pestering fly. Almost too quickly for me to see, he reached inside his haori and pulled out a long, glass vial. He threw it. I scrambled backwards, knowing all too well what was inside.

Bard leapt forward before I could stop him. He caught the vial in his teeth; I heard the glass shatter.

"Bard, no!"

Realizing the danger, he dropped everything. Pieces of glass fell tinkling from his mouth to the concrete floor, splashed with the clear, innocent-looking liquid. He backed away from the broken vial and the toxin it had contained, already sneezing and snorting against its effect. I rushed forward to pull him away faster, but froze at the sound of Kane's quiet laughter.

"What a loyal dog," he mused. "My condolences. You should go now, Miss Sterne. I'll give you a head start. Let's say… as long as it takes me to finish seven kata."

I didn't stop to think about it. I told Bard to go and ran. We both leapt from the platform at dead sprints and bolted into the maze of the city beneath the wall. Bard surged ahead of me, his nose raised to the wind and his tail lowered. I raced after him, knowing he had to be close to panic. The toxin in the vile had taken away one of his senses—smell, going by his reaction. Hemlock had left me a message after all.

We ran and ran, taking wild turns and ducking down alleys that all looked the same. I kept glancing over my shoulder, expecting to see Kane and his clone closing in. But, always, there was only darkness.

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A/N: Thanks for reading! If you notice any mistakes or stuff I've left out [like the lack of physical description for Charlie in the first chapter—thanks for catching that _of fan and fic_!] tell meeeeeee. I will listen to you guys. Probably.

Fun side note 1: Most of you probably got it, but Kane's name is pronounced Kah-nay.

Fun side note 2: Did you know Synchrotron radiation is an actual thing? I was all like, _pshht, Anime science_, but no. Real science.

Fun side note 3: I know absolutely nothing about kendo, except that I'd fail at it because I'd never make it past putting on those complicated training outfits.

_HeavenlyCondemned_: Thank you so much for your feedback! I agree, November needs some more airtime. He's too intriguing a character for me to leave on the sidelines—for more than a chapter or two, at least. :]

Also, I know I said Hei would be in this chapter… and he is. Just in part two. Check back Saturday!


	3. Stand at the Gate, Part 2

A/N: I got to go horseback riding yesterday, so I was on a horse instead of working on this, which is why it's a day late. Sorry! Luckily, I don't have a long introduction for this one—it picks up exactly where Part 1 left off.

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Chapter 3: Stand at the Gate, Part 2

My heart sank as Bard slowed to a jog in front of me, his head swinging desperately from side to side. He let out a long, low whine when I caught up with him and stumbled to a standstill. He was panting heavily, his tongue lolling out between his teeth.

I bent next to him and reached for his mouth. "Let me look." He obediently turned his head and let me lift his upper lip enough for me to see the damage the vial had done to his tongue and gums. While it wasn't as bad as I thought it would be, the broken glass had left small, jagged cuts in several places. The good news was that they didn't seem to be bleeding too badly.

I waved my hand in front of his nose. "Can you smell anything?"

His nostrils flared repeatedly as he tested the air; eventually, he gave a sideways jerk of his head. _No_.

"It was the vial," I said. I put my hand on his head and stroked his fur. "It took away one of your senses. It's probably lucky that it wasn't your sight or hearing."

He seemed more ambivalent about his luck than I was—though, admittedly, his sense of smell would have been helpful in this situation. If we were being ambushed now, we'd only have forewarning if Kane failed to hide in the shadows or to mask his footsteps.

No less relieved that Bard hadn't been hurt worse than he was, I wrapped my arms around his neck and gave him a squeeze. "Thanks, Bard. You didn't have to do that."

He whined in response.

Still winded from my sprint, I dropped to a crouch and draped my arms over my knees as I caught my breath. After a moment of recovery, I looked up at Bard, certain he could read the apprehension on my face. "So. Do you know where we are?"

He stared at me for one long moment before sitting back on his haunches and lifting his ears. He held his breath and, slowly, his head swiveled from left to right, like a satellite scanning for a signal. I knew he'd come up empty when he started the whole process over again. Look for something familiar; listen for footsteps, voices, traffic; reach the same conclusion. I pulled out my phone and checked for a signal that wasn't there.

We were stranded.

I let a string of curses hiss out under my breath. Contractors knew we were here, and at least one of them was coming after me. I'd lost the upper hand—quite spectacularly—and the only option now was to retreat. Quickly.

"If we keep the wall to our backs, we'll be fine. We'll make it to Shinjuku."

Bard stood up, looked behind himself, and adjusted his heading according to my suggestion. When that was done, he turned his chocolate eyes to me. _Let's go_, they said.

"Okay." I hauled myself to my feet and took one last cleansing breath. "Let's hurry."

Without his sense of smell to guide him, Bard was less inclined to take the lead. He trotted at my side, head dropped to the ground to disguise his height, while I stayed low in a running crouch. We paused at every corner, just long enough for him to listen, before pressing onward.

We were running blind, and the oppressive darkness only added to my growing paranoia. The streets were painfully black, painfully unknowable. I kept my gun in my hand. For every step that carried us closer to safety, I feared the next would be the one to bring Kane and his Contractors down upon us.

_But it doesn't make sense_. Somewhere in the back of my mind—the part that wasn't concentrating on navigating the labyrinth of abandoned streets—I considered the possibility that Kane had been bluffing. Why not attack while I was standing right in front of him? Why let me go? And while I was questioning his motives, I had to wonder why he'd stopped Lyme from coming at me. _They never got close enough to touch me_. _Whose orders—_

I saw a flash of movement out of the corner of my eye; the oscillation of a shadow in the void between two freestanding buildings. Bard froze, mirroring me, and stared at the offending space. The hair raised on my arms as I registered the sensation of eyes staring at me. I raised my gun, taking aim at the invisible specter. Maybe I was wrong to think Kane was bluffing after all.

"Come out!" I shouted.

Metal—a carabiner attached to a wire flying at me out of nowhere. In the same moment that it looped around the wrist of my gun-hand, I pulled the trigger. In the next instant, the carabiner snapped shut and the wire tightened like a noose. The world went sideways as it yanked me off my feet, and then I was on the ground, being dragged into the mouth of darkness. My gun clattered to the concrete and bounced in the opposite direction.

I collided with Bard in the confusion. Teeth latched onto the wire, he dug his claws in and strained against its pull. His breath felt hot against my captured hand. Seizing the opportunity, I used the slack he'd afforded me to loosen the loop of wire and throw it off. Freed, I scrambled away on my hands and knees, glass and rocks cutting into my palms in my hurry. I frantically searched for my gun, but it had disappeared beyond my reach.

"Bard, down!"

He released the wire and dropped to the ground with a yelp of pain.

Giving up on my first gun, I pulled the revolver from my pants pocket and lined up the sights. But I had nothing to shoot at; I couldn't make out a target from my current angle.

The silence was deafening. The wire lay on the ground like a rope cast aside. Lifeless. I was on my back, flush with the cracked concrete except for my raised head and arms, and I was afraid to move. A few feet away, between me and the ambush point, Bard lay with his head between his paws, growling and whining as he rubbed his muzzle on the asphalt.

"Shhh, it's okay," I whispered, shoving my panic into the back of my mind. I could smell the tang of blood in the air. He'd taken more damage for me. I knew he was hurt. And I knew it could get worse any second.

Bard stilled, and my ears strained to pick up any sound that might hint another attack was coming. The quiet buzzed like static, and I tried to remember if I'd hit my head. Were my ears ringing? I lay there waiting for what felt like hours before I heard anything recognizable.

It was a groan.

Bard sat up, his ears pricked towards the sound. As if in commiseration, he whined.

Cautiously, I stood and inched towards him. He eagerly placed his nose in my hands when I reached for him. Lifting his upper lip revealed three fractured teeth, one of them broken so close to his gums that I could see the red, pulp-like tissue at the center. An involuntary grimace sent a shiver down my spine. The sight made little fingers of guilt poke at my conscience for shushing him.

"Hang in there; we'll get you fixed up." I spared a moment to comfort him with a scratch behind the ears. "Good boy. You're a good boy."

His tail gave a timid wag. I smiled, but I couldn't ignore the matter at hand.

"Is he still there?" I whispered, pointing at the dark space between the buildings.

His muzzle made a downward sweeping motion. A nod. _Yes_.

I steeled myself and tiptoed to the edge of the nearest of the two buildings. I pressed myself against the wall and made my way to the corner. When I peered into the alley, I didn't see anything. But as my eyes adjusted, I began to distinguish a shape from the rest of the blackness. A clump of shadows and a white disk.

No. A trench coat and a white mask. Someone collapsed against the wall.

"Move, and I'll shoot."

The person behind the mask seemed to startle at my voice. In the darkness, I could barely make out the shapes of two black eyes staring at me. I was confused at fist, stunned that this obviously wasn't Kane.

"Are you with him?" I demanded. "Where is he?"

"Who?" the Mask rasped. Staring down the barrel, I could see his hand pressed to the side of his neck. The dart glinted on the ground next to him. I tried to conceal my surprise.

"That was poison." I jabbed the gun in the direction of the dart. "You've got about thirty seconds before you really start to feel it. Answer me quickly."

When he spoke, I was amazed at the calmness in his tone. "I am alone."

"If you aren't with him, what are you doing here? Where did you come from?"

"From—" His voice cut off with a gasp, air hissing from his lungs. I readjusted my grip on the gun, watching as the first wave hit him like a knife to the gut. "From… PANDORA," he said through gritted teeth. "You have the antidote?"

I ignored the question. "Why did you attack me?"

His head rolled from side to side. "I was going for your gun." He wasn't panicking. Somewhere between awe and bewilderment, I stared as his hand dropped from his throat to his side, his fingers twitching. "I wanted… to disarm you."

"Are _you_ armed?" I asked.

"Yes." The air seemed to go out of him. Disorientation. Unconsciousness would be next; I was intimately familiar with the stages. But if he was doing what I thought he was doing—keeping his heart rate down to slow the spread of the poison—I didn't know how long I'd be waiting.

"Where?"

As if it weighed hundreds of pounds, he lifted his hand with great effort and touched the hem of his trench coat near his waist. "Here." Then, overtaken, his muscles slackened, his chin dropping to his chest. I stood at attention a few seconds longer, waiting to be sure he was really unconscious, before edging into the alley.

I nudged his leg with my foot. Nothing. Satisfied, I holstered my weapon and knelt to his side. I reached for his mask.

A gloved hand closed around my wrist. His grip was too weak to do any damage, but I still recoiled in surprise.

The word came out on a breath: "Don't." And then his hand fell away, and he was silent.

I exhaled heavily and stared down at the masked man, waiting for my heart to stop pounding. Bard crept into the alleyway, his tail lowered. He must've sensed the danger had passed, because he ventured close enough to hazard a sniff of the stranger's shoes. A few seconds later, he looked at me with his mouth hanging open, and shook his head. His sense of smell hadn't returned.

I turned away, prepared to leave, and called Bard.

He whined. When I glanced back, he was still standing by the unconscious man. My eyes shifted from Bard to the Mask. I could feel my conscience bucking around in my chest like a protesting animal, competing with my drive to escape.

"Dammit."

I threw a _so-help-me_ look skyward before bending and hooking my elbows under the man's arms. He wasn't particularly tall, maybe a couple inches taller than me, but he was heavy. Solid. All lean muscle. Hunched over with the strain, I dragged him into one of the buildings and dropped him behind a falling-down sales counter. As long as we were out of the open, I could breathe easier. Bard stationed himself next to the door—a generic glass thing with a long bar for a handle. The top pane was busted out. It was probably what had kept the air inside the little shop from going stale.

Sitting on his haunches, Bard watched as I dug through my bag for the metal box at the bottom. The tiny hinges creaked when I propped the lid open and retrieved one of the syringes inside. Done with the box, I stuffed it back in my bag and dropped to my knees next to the Mask.

After checking his wrist for a pulse and discovering that he was, in fact, still alive—at which point I experienced a wave of mixed feelings—I took the cap off the needle, depressed the plunger to force out the air bubbles, and stabbed him in the thigh. _There's your antidote_. It was as I withdrew the needle that I noticed his pants.

"What the hell?" I opened his trench coat and stared. "Is this… a janitor's uniform?"

Bard abandoned the door to peer over my shoulder. He snorted in my ear.

Right away, I decided I'd gotten myself into an even weirder and more dangerous situation than I'd initially realized. What was a janitor—from PANDORA—doing running around outside the wall in a trench coat and mask with two very large knives and enough cable to climb Everest?

I removed the knives from their sheaths and set them aside, but left the wire in place. I didn't know what the Mask would do when he woke up, but it'd probably involve something sharp and general unpleasantness all around. As I was about to sit back against the counter, the impulse hit me again. Walking around with a mask like that, he was just asking for someone to take it off. There was a face under there.

Caught between the opposing urges of letting him be and looking at his face, I sat frozen, immobilized.

Directly over my head, a cat meowed.

I tilted my head back and looked straight into the eyes of a black tomcat that had perched itself on the countertop. Bard, in typical dog fashion, was immediately ready to give chase.

"Sit," I shouted when he stood up and put his paws on the counter.

Baffled, he turned his wide eyes to me and plopped down.

"No chasing Gate cats, okay?"

The cat meowed.

"Just stay by the door."

With a loud sigh, Bard obeyed.

I turned back to the Mask, forgetting my curiosity—maybe unconsciously deciding to let him be a mystery. I bent his legs at the knee and propped them up to direct more blood to his heart. The antidote had already started working. Now it was just a waiting game to make sure there were no complications.

I scooted a few feet away, creating a buffer zone between the Mask and me, and leaned back against the side of the counter.

The night was silent. To pass the time, I glanced around the little building and imagined what it looked like before Hell's Gate appeared. It had been a convenience store once. Though I was sure some of the stock must have been looted, a large portion of it still remained on the crooked shelves. Bags of chips, ramen cups, soda bottles, candy bars, magazines, comic books; all carefully arranged and organized, just as the attendant had left it. Forgotten as it was, as if someone had hit the pause button and never come back, I wondered how the shop might have looked with sun streaming in through its front windows. How many patrons used to stop here for morning coffee? Dozens of feet must have walked the floor where I was sitting. Had they stood at the windows and watched as the Gate devoured part of their city? Had they run?

I pulled my phone out and checked for a signal. The smallest bar flashed a few times, but didn't put a call through when I tried. Which was why I was surprised when, a few seconds later, a text message from Jack popped up on the screen. The time stamp said it'd been sent more than ten minutes ago.

It was a messier code: _BK201_

I blinked at the screen as my mind raced to remember why the number set off alarm bells. A second text popped up, this one almost as old as the first. There was only one word: _Run_

The bottom dropped out of my stomach as Jack's voice echoed in my head. _"… If you ever come across messier code BK-201, just run. All right?"_

I pushed away from the counter, but, in my rush to stand, my legs got caught under me so I fell forward onto my knees. My breath hitched when I started to warn Bard. Something in the air had changed.

A curse formed on my lips as I reacted. I whirled around to look at the Mask just in time to see his right hand coming at my face

My back hit the floor. The impact knocked the air out of my lungs in a painful _whoosh_. The Mask was on top of me, the palm of his hand pressed against my forehead. His fingers clawed in my hair and squeezed. I gritted my teeth against the discomfort, but didn't let my aim waver. I kept the barrel of my gun pressed firmly between the Mask's black eyes.

That moment of tense stalemate was suffocating. I didn't know what he was going to do. Was I going to pull the trigger? Kill him, this time? Time stretched to impossible lengths as I stared up at the false face—the thin line of a mouth, the purple lightning symbol covering one eye. So this was messier code BK-201.

I wondered how many more things were going to go wrong tonight.

Neither of us was ready to surrender. I could feel Bard and the cat hovering just out of eyeshot, looking on in excruciating silence. The air was still, as if the whole building were watching and holding its breath. As if the moment had frozen.

I waited for a blue glow, for red eyes, for any sign that I was about to die. Thudding in my ears like a stopwatch, my heart measured out the agonizing seconds we stayed locked like that. As I was starting to think I could see the eyes watching me from behind the mask, a dim reflection of light caught on their surface, the illusion broke.

He pulled his hand away from my head.

I took my finger off the trigger.

He did something curious then: With that same hand, he carefully touched the mask, as if checking that it was still there.

I gave a small shake of my head. "I didn't…"

Somewhere off to the side, the cat yowled loudly and leapt from the counter to the floor. The space above me was suddenly empty. I sat up. BK-201 stood a few feet away, looking towards the door so I could see the pale skin along the curve of his jaw. A second later, I heard what he'd already detected: footsteps echoing off the buildings outside.

BK-201 glanced at me one last time before turning away and running towards the back of the store. The cat chased after him and, a few seconds later, I heard a door slam shut.

It jarred me to my senses.

Adrenaline had me on my feet immediately. I grabbed my bag and was halfway out the back before I saw the knives still sitting on the floor by the counter. I snatched them and dropped them into my bag. They clanged against the metal box of syringes as I ran out the rear exit onto the street.

Escape. Escape escape escape. The word became a mantra, repeating in time with my pounding footsteps. I didn't know who I was running from anymore—Kane or BK-201, or maybe both—but I knew I needed to get out of the Gate's shadow.

Now behind the shop, one block over from where the footsteps were coming from, I dashed for an alley that might give us some cover. Bard hugged my heels as I leapt from the sidewalk and cut across the rubble-strewn street.

Bard barked a warning, loud and deep. I didn't have time to turn around and look before a hand closed around my left wrist and pulled me back. Instinctively, I used the shift in momentum to my advantage, lowering my shoulder just enough to ram upwards into my attacker's chest.

I recognized the "Oomph" on impact.

Jack went stumbling backwards, the air knocked out of him, while I recovered my balance less than gracefully.

"Sorry! I'm sorry!" I said through a grimace. "Are you—?"

"I'm fine. I think you dropped this." Doubled-over with his hands on his knees, he didn't look at me as he held out my modified twenty-two. "I don't want to know how you got it into Japan. Just tell me you didn't shoot anyone."

My eyes widened. "I shot two people."

He looked up at me through his eyebrows, mouth hanging open in incredulity. "Are they dead?"

I quickly shook my head no, but froze midway through the action when Bard eyeballed me and whined. "Well, one of them is dead," I corrected. "But not because of me. Well, sort of because of me. I had a plan, but it went sideways."

"BK-201?"

"No. I mean, yes, I shot him, too, but I… fixed him."

I got the look like I'd grown a second head and declared the sky was green. "Why? Why would you fix him?"

"I didn't know he was BK-201!"

"If you had answered your phone…"

"I didn't have a signal half the time!" I shot him an indignant glare. "And 'run' would have been a good text to _lead _with, by the way! I've got your messier code memorized, and that's it!"

"I told you about BK-201 less than a week ago. I thought it'd stick a little longer." Still wheezing, he pressed a hand to his sternum and slowly straightened. He seemed to realize something then, and patted the side of his jacket. Groaning, he reached inside and pulled out a crushed pack of cigarettes. He closed his eyes and sighed. "I'm going to melt like butter because of you."

"You used your power?"

"I plan to. Where's BK-201?"

"He heard you coming and ran."

"Never mind, then." He tossed the cigarettes away and let his hands drop to his sides. "Are you hurt?"

I shook my head.

Relief passed through his eyes. He motioned for me to follow him, and I did. Silence surrounded us like a bubble as he led the way through the streets until, eventually, we came to a waiting car. The blonde child, July, was sitting in the front seat. He watched from the window with an utterly blank expression as we ran up. I thought I understood now.

"He's a Doll?"

"Yes. His medium is glass." Jack opened one of the rear doors for me and hurried around to the driver's side, but paused to share a look with me over the roof of the car. "You have a shard stuck in your hand, by the way."

"What?" I looked down at my upturned palms and, sure enough, found a small, bloody gash in the meat below my left thumb. Now that I'd seen it, I registered the pain. Of course.

Once Bard had jumped into the car, I climbed in and closed the door. "Thanks for finding me, July."

"Mm." He stared straight out the windshield as he nodded his head. "You are November's friend."

I couldn't tell if it was a question, so I just said, "Yes." The car started moving, picking up speed as Jack headed for Shinjuku.

The boy considered my answer, silent for so long that I didn't think he was going to speak again. When he did, it was with the same dispassionate air. "We watch out for our friends."

I saw Jack give him a sidelong look, as if the sentiment were somehow contrary, unexpected—which was strange in itself, since I thought July had probably learned it from him. They'd both come to get me, after all.

I leaned my head back and let my muscles go slack against the seat. If they'd reclined at all, I probably would have passed out.

"Do you need a doctor?" Jack asked. I didn't miss the irony in his tone.

"No. But Bard does."

Hearing his name, Bard turned himself around and laid his horse-sized head in my lap.

"Franken-dog? Why?"

"He took some damage for me," I said, my voice going quiet. I stroked Bard's ears, smoothing down his wiry fur. "Sometimes I wish he couldn't understand us."

Bard raised his head and looked at me with his sad, chocolate eyes. _Why?_

"You get hurt too often, buddy," I said in a whisper.

He whined—maybe in agreement—and put his head down again. I kept petting him.

"Should I wait to ask you what you were doing so close to the wall, or is now a good time?"

I cocked an eyebrow at the back of Jack's head. His tone said now was a good time and he expected an answer no matter what I thought he _should_ do.

"You were right. Hemlock's here," I said.

He looked up sharply, meeting my eyes in the rearview mirror. "You saw her?"

"No. I met some of her cronies. One of them is a Contractor named Kane. He can duplicate himself, and his price is doing seven kata. Or something. He had a katana."

"A real one?"

"I'd say so. His clone killed someone with it."

"He duplicated the sword as well?"

"Yeah. And he had one of Hemlock's vials. Threw it at me, and Bard caught it."

Jack grew quiet at this. He knew as well as I did what that meant for Bard. "Which one did he lose?" he asked eventually.

"Smell."

"Hm." The quiet sound was vaguely sympathetic. "And where does BK-201 come into all this?"

"We were trying to make it back to Shinjuku," I explained. My adrenaline was fading, and my eyes were weighed down with fatigue. "I think we ran into each other by chance. He said he'd come from PANDORA. What's his power, by the way?"

"Generating and manipulating electricity," Jack said, clearly distracted. "He was coming from PANDORA?"

"Yeah. That's what he said, anyway."

"Interesting…"

I watched him in the rearview mirror for a few seconds; his eyes were on the road, and he didn't notice. Whatever was so interesting about it, he never said. I decided I'd ask him about it later, and stared out the window. We'd made it back to the realm of streetlights and pedestrians. Relieved, I let my eyes slip closed and forced my mind to go quiet.

Bard was already asleep on my lap.

* * *

A/N: Oh hey, Hei. Fancy meeting you here. Is that a meteor shard in your pocket or are you just—

Okay, I'll stop.

_Bleu Tsuki_: Thanks so much for your nice review—you're giving me the warm fuzzies! And I'm really glad you're liking Charlotte so far!

Look for the next update in about a week! :] For your ears: Better Think Again by Submersed


	4. How Close Am I to Losing

A/N: I apparently suck at meeting deadlines that aren't school related. My apologies. I'm going to keep trying to put out a chapter every week, but more as a motivational goal thing instead of setting an actual upload day. But this is [kind of?] a long chapter, so I hope that makes up for it!

As always, thank you so much for reading this story, and a special thanks to those of you who've left reviews! Y'all are awesome. Hugs all around :]

* * *

Chapter 4: How Close Am I to Losing

Jack brought me coffee, which was one point in his favor. And he had the good sense not to look annoyed when I sat down on the floor with it and pulled Bard's head into my lap. Two points.

I'd dozed for an hour or two, never quite slipping into sleep past the images of Hemlock waiting for me in the dark. My brain had fired up and set my gears turning as soon as I'd rested enough to be functional. Bard hadn't slept at all, either. Flopping around and intermittently pacing the hallway from the kitchen to the bedroom was about all he could do. Even with the wrapped ice I'd set out for him to lay his muzzle on, the discomfort drove him to distraction.

After scouring the bedroom and the kitchen, I'd eventually found a phonebook in the top drawer of the desk in the living room. I'd grabbed a blanket from the top shelf in my closet and plopped myself down on the floor with Bard. We'd stayed in the bedroom at first, but migrated out to the living area after Jack knocked on the door and let himself in with a key I didn't know he had. He apparently hadn't been lying when he told me he'd be able to hear me moving around from his apartment downstairs.

July was with him. Didn't stop him from exaggerating the up-and-down sweep he gave me and saying, rather disappointedly, "Ah. You're dressed."

I gave him a tired smile. "I try not to walk around naked at all hours."

He returned the smile, more gentle than goading for once, and handed me a steaming cup. It smelled absolutely wonderful, rich and—hopefully—heavily caffeinated. "Still take your coffee the same way?"

"I do." I tried not to react when our fingers brushed as I took the mug from his hand, but, really, my brain could only handle so many things at once. "Creature of habit."

The imaginary line between the dining area and the living room demarcated a boundary between us, though we weren't more than five feet apart as I leaned against a wall and slid to the floor next to Bard, and Jack took a chair from the table and sat down. When I glanced around for July, I found him standing at the window on the other side of the living room, hands pressed to the glass as if he were reaching for the dark city on the other side.

"What's he looking for?" I asked quietly.

"Lots of things, probably." Jack let out a long breath that wasn't quite a sigh. "Our masked friend, or maybe Annika."

I flinched at the name, startling myself as well as Bard and Jack. It was a reaction I had no control over, like kicking after getting tapped on the knee by a reflex hammer. While I forced myself to breathe past the spontaneous tension in my shoulders, I cursed myself for letting it happen. Exactly how many years had I had to deal with this?

"Sorry," Jack said, eyeing me apprehensively. He shifted his weight, almost leaning forward as if he were debating reaching out to me. Giving my shoulder a reassuring squeeze or something. But he didn't. "Hemlock," he corrected.

I nodded once, quickly.

Amazed I hadn't spilled it, I took a careful sip of coffee before temporarily setting the cup aside and juggling the phonebook and Bard's icepack into positions I could manage. I propped the oversized book open on my knee with one hand, and held up the ice with the other. Most of it had melted.

I cleared my throat to make sure my voice would work. "Hey. Could you…?"

As if this were the opening he'd been waiting for, Jack leaned forward and reached out to touch the condensation-covered bag with one finger. The pulse of blue that momentarily engulfed him played tricks on my eyes, blurring him around the edges as if I were looking at him through a heat wave. It only took a second for the bag of water to freeze into a solid chunk.

"Thanks." I wrapped it back up in the small towel it'd been in before, which was just thick enough to ease the raw sting of the cold as I placed it against Bard's muzzle. He gave a grateful whine and closed his eyes. "You have to smoke for that?"

"Eventually," Jack said. "Something that small, I can put it off for a few hours."

"You can if you need to. I'll open a window."

He shrugged and sat back in his chair, fingers curling around his own cup of coffee. "What are you looking for?" he asked, gesturing at the phonebook.

"A veterinarian for Bard." I thumbed through the yellow pages and scowled at the gibberish-looking markings. "Some of it's in English, but… I don't know. I think I'm going cross-eyed."

When he held his hand out for the phonebook, I passed it over to him, his arm sinking a few inches under its awkward weight. I stroked Bard's ears and watched as Jack navigated the pages much more confidently than I had.

"Hmm."

I stiffened. "What?"

"None of these say they have emergency hours." He shook his head and made a tutting sound with his tongue. "No equine vets, either."

"Ha."

He glanced up just long enough to shoot me a teasing grin. "There's one in Shinjuku that _says_ they speak English, but you need an appointment. And they don't open till ten."

I pulled out my phone and glanced at the time on the screen. "Five more hours."

Bard whined, though I wasn't sure if it was at the prospect of waiting, or at the very idea of a vet visit that was bound to be all kinds of not-fun.

"Is he all right?"

Apparently feeling the need to answer the question himself, Bard lifted his head enough to open his mouth and let out a low, groaning "Wah-ooo." _Nooo_. I couldn't help wincing for him; I'd chipped a tooth before and knew how much it hurt, how the simple exposure to air could sting down to the quick. Breaking several teeth at once wasn't something I even wanted to contemplate. Just thinking about all the damage he'd taken had my hackles rising, and there were only two blips on my radar worth directing my anger at: Hemlock and BK-201.

A huff of hot air gusted against my knee when Bard heaved a final groan and dropped his head back onto the ice pack in my lap.

"I'm slightly concerned that I understood that," Jack said, shaking his head. "I'll call. Maybe I can leave a message. Oh, and look. A map."

He was trying much too hard to contain his laughter when he turned the phonebook around and held it up to show me a neatly drawn map of Shinjuku, complete with lines delineating streets and the meaningless characters I couldn't understand.

I snorted a laugh despite myself. "Jack, if you set me loose with that map, you'd probably never see me again. I'd end up in the middle of the ocean somewhere."

"Ah, it's just kanji. Mostly." He flipped the book around and set it on the table, somehow managing to grin and frown at the same time as he scrutinized it. "If you hang around long enough, I'll teach you."

Surprise had me raising my eyebrows. _What?_ "I don't… know how long I'll be in Japan," I hedged, going for a casual tone. I couldn't read him from where I was sitting. "As long as this Hemlock thing takes…"

He probably saw right through me, if the conspiratorial, _I-know-I'm-just-riffing-you_ look he shot me was anything to go by.

I shook my head, letting the moment pass. "You got stuff to do today?"

"The usual secret agent shenanigans."

"Ah."

"I can get you pointed in the right direction."

"That's all right. I don't want to be blamed for the destruction of the Motherland because I dragged MI-6's top agent to the vet," I said with a wry grin.

"Hah. You're hardly a distraction."

"And yet—" I spread my arms and looked around my apartment as if surprised to find myself there. "—here you are."

"Yes." His voice dropped to a contemplative hum. "Here I am."

I cleared my throat and looked down at Bard so I wouldn't have to hold Jack's icy blue gaze. "I'll call Li." I looked at my phone again. "In a few hours."

"The exchange student?"

"Yeah. He knows his way around. And I kind of told him you were my boss… and that I'd introduce you."

"Ah. Well, while we're on that subject…" He canted his head to one side as he leaned back in his chair, its wooden joints creaking. "As MI-6's unofficial poisons consultant, I might actually need you to do some consulting."

"For what?"

"A friend."

I stared at him. "Friend?"

His mouth twitched, pulling to one side. "Sounds funny when I say it, doesn't it?"

I was a little startled to notice movement in my peripheral vision, but it was only July half-turning away from the window to peer at us. He stayed silent while I grappled with my own sudden loss for words.

"I just…" I shook my head, noticed my cup of coffee sitting on the floor, and grabbed it, taking a long drink to buy time. When I was done, I cleared my throat and tried not to read into Jack's vaguely amused expression. "You've been calling me an old friend, which… is unexpected, but understandable. And appreciated!" I added quickly. "But I was under the impression _friendships_ weren't the most, um…"

"Rational?"

"Yeah. Not the most rational things to cultivate, I guess."

"They aren't," he said after a moment's consideration. "But people are starting to grow on me." I jumped when he suddenly pointed at me. "You're fault."

I couldn't help laughing under my breath. "How is that my fault?"

"I don't know, but it started about the time you showed up. The scientist in me says the two must be connected."

"Uh huh…"

"Right. And this _friend_ might be a local police officer."

My inner alarm bells threatened to go off. "A police officer?"

"Or the section-chief of Foreign Affairs."

Alarm bells. Everywhere. I tilted my head back against the wall and dug the heels of my hands into my eyes. "I can't do a consult for a section-chief!"

"Sure you can. The two of you will get along great. Or you'll hate each other."

"Why would we hate each other?"

"She's kind of… How do I put this gently? _Stiff_. No sense of humor."

I stared at him.

"I know, I know. How on earth will you deflect if she's immune to sarcasm?"

"How does she put up with you without a sense of humor?" I countered.

"Hell if I know."

I clapped my hands over my face again and scrubbed at my eyes until I saw stars. "I can't even keep track of how many laws I'm breaking right now," I muttered into my hands. "If I do a job for the police, it'll be like I'm poking the bear."

"Just don't shoot anything in front of her and you'll be fine."

I gave him a look I hoped communicated the depths of my displeasure, but he remained unperturbed. "When do you need this consult done…?"

"Not sure yet, but I know where to find you." For the first time since he'd let himself in, his expression darkened. "Provided you don't go gallivanting off to the wall again. Without me."

I looked down at my lap, annoyed with myself when all I could do was fix my hands with a guilty stare.

"Especially now that you're on BK-201's radar. I know your experience with him is limited, but he's not the type to forget a target who's managed to land a hit."

"To be fair, he attacked me first," I said. "And I gave him the antidote, anyway, so maybe he'll let bygones be bygones."

Jack peered at me over the rim of his coffee mug as he took a swig, eyes narrowed enough that I understood the silent question, even if I didn't understand why it was an issue.

_You really think that's the end of it?_

I heaved a sigh. "If he's a Contractor, what would he stand to gain from coming after me? I don't think I was his target—I think we just happened to cross paths trying to get away from the wall, and we both reacted defensively and did some damage to each other. We both got away. _Alive_. So it's done. That's the end of it."

"If he were governed by any sort of code I could understand, I might agree with you."

"What does that mean?"

"He doesn't make rational decisions."

"But he's a Contractor."

"Yes," Jack said, inexplicably grinning, "and I made sure to tell him so. Alas."

"Hold on." I eyeballed him, intensely aware of the cold pit forming in my stomach as my brain made all the necessary connections. "That knife wound… Shit, Jack! He's the one who stabbed you?"

He sat up in genuine surprise, as if I'd just spouted off a long list of chemical equations without prompting. "How did you…?"

I gently lifted Bard's head off my lap and stood before Jack could finish his question. I hurried down the hallway to my bedroom and grabbed my messenger bag from the armchair where I'd tossed it. I hefted its unfamiliar heaviness over my shoulder and strode back to the kitchen. Bard and July looked on with subdued interest as I set the bag down on the table in front of Jack and pulled out BK-201's knives.

Double-bladed and perfectly balanced, they brought the image of a tuning fork to mind as I took a hilt in each hand and held them up. They were heavier than they looked, but felt secure in my grip, as if the strange blades had become natural extensions of my arms.

I waited for Jack to say something, but when I looked away from the knives to gauge his expression, he had his eyes closed and the bridge of his nose pinched between a thumb and forefinger.

"You took BK-201's knives," he said, voice flat enough that I didn't think it was a question.

"Yes," I said anyway.

He shook his head without looking up, his shoulders shaking with silent laughter. "I lose track of you for one night and this is what happens. I don't know if I should be impressed or absolutely mortified."

"He was unconscious…"

"That makes it a little better, I suppose," he said. But his voice didn't sound like that made it any better.

"Look. If he stabbed you… And if you killed the Contractor he was trying to…" To what? Rescue? I pursed my lips and shook my head. "That changes things."

"Yes. You understand now?" Jack sighed and let his hand fall away. When he met my gaze, his eyes looked much more tired than they had just a few minutes ago. "He will have already made the connection between you and me. And as BK-201 and I are not on the friendliest of terms, I'm afraid you've got a lovely little target painted on your back. If he wanted a way to get back at me, he's certainly got it."

"The perils of having friends." I didn't bother hiding the sardonic edge in my tone as I set the knives down on the table. I hoped it was enough to mask the curl of fear I felt seeping into my bones.

"Yes," Jack said, his voice haggard. "I'd almost forgotten what it felt like to worry over someone." Slowly, a frown pulled at his mouth, tightening his expression.

I thought maybe I should pat him on the shoulder, give him a hug, do _something_, but I really didn't know how to deal with his new Contractor feelings, or even if hugging him would just make it worse. If he was worried, he might think the rational thing to do was get a grip on me and keep it.

"We haven't even talked about Hemlock yet," he said, as if noticing that whole mess of potential worries for the first time. We'd certainly danced around the topic long enough—a mercy he'd probably consciously orchestrated after my reaction to Hemlock's name.

"Short version?" I asked, knowing full well he wasn't going to insist on the unabridged version unless I volunteered it. Instead of returning to the floor to sit with Bard, I pulled out the chair next to Jack's and sat facing him, much like I had that first night when I'd stitched him up. "I went in armed, looking for Contractors who might've known where she was. Found a couple, and this woman, Lyme, led Bard and me to an old warehouse. There were six Contractors inside—five of them just sat on crates and stared the whole time. I told you about Kane."

Jack nodded, his mouth pulled into a thin line.

"He's close to her. Somehow. He knew who I was and basically told me I was wasting my time, because Hemlock wouldn't be making an appearance. So… I shot Lyme."

He closed his eyes for a second, giving a minute shake of his head that smacked vaguely of disapproval. "And she died."

"Well, yes, but I had a plan. I poisoned her, and I thought she might run off to Hemlock to get an antidote. And if she did that, I could have followed. But Kane's little twin killed her. Didn't even give her a chance to run. So I tried to shoot _him_, figuring that he'd definitely go running to Hemlock. But I missed, and that's when he threw Hemlock's vial. Bard caught it, and then Kane told us to run, that he'd give us a head start. So I frickin' ran."

"Good."

"No. I don't think he would have attacked me, even if I hadn't run."

"But that's not a theory you should test when all you've got on your team is a wolfhound."

Off behind me, Bard rumbled a low, warning growl.

"None of them ever got close enough to touch me. And when I tried to provoke Lyme into attacking—" Jack pinched the bridge of his nose again. "—Kane stopped her. He said she had to follow some orders or something and leave me alone."

"This whole _loose cannon_ thing… It works for you?"

"There's more."

He cracked an eye at me. "You're joking."

"No. I think she's having me followed."

For some unfathomable reason, relief diffused the tension around Jack's eyes. "That's to be expected," he said.

I stared at him in consternation. "What?"

"How do you think I found you last night?"

"July, but—" I straightened against the back of my chair, my spine going rigid. "You have him watching me _all the time_?"

"Not _all_ the time," Jack said, his tone placating to match the calmness in his eyes. "Just when I want to make sure you haven't wandered off. To the wall, for instance."

"And Hemlock is keeping tabs on me, too?"

He shrugged. Not the reaction I was looking for, and the incredulous glare I aimed at him must have gotten my point across, because he winced and leaned away.

"Ah, July?"

"Mm."

"Any other Dolls or specters hanging around the building?" Jack asked, his voice indicating he didn't expect much.

July shook his head, then swiped a lock of his gold-spun hair out of his eyes.

"What if it's not a Doll or a specter?" I crossed my arms. "She might have an actual person following me."

Jack frowned, skeptical. "It's possible, but a specter would be the rational choice. You're human, so you wouldn't notice a blue ghost following you around. You'd be far more likely to notice a person."

"Rational," I repeated, testing the way the word played on my tongue. "You're an expert, I suppose."

He smiled, but didn't otherwise acknowledge my half-hearted barb. "Anyway, didn't you say there were other Contractors in the warehouse?" he asked. "Maybe they weren't Contractors. Maybe they were Dolls."

Silent as I regarded July's silhouette against the neon-lit window, I contemplated the possibility that Jack was right. The small group of people I'd assumed were Contractors sat quietly throughout my confrontation with Kane. They'd never reacted to anything—that I'd noticed—which was consistent with July's behavior. Composed, imperturbable. Calm to the point that I wondered if he was actually aware of his surroundings. I supposed he had to be—maybe even hyperaware, if I considered the fact that his specter was scouring the city and taking in vast amounts of information I doubted I'd be able to interpret as efficiently as he did.

"So if it is a specter," I began, "how do I shake it?"

Jack lifted one shoulder in a helpless shrug. "You can't. Unless you know what their medium is. And if she has more than one Doll at her disposal, you're looking at multiple mediums, and multiple specters."

"So she could have them watching us right now."

His eyes narrowed as he glanced around the room, searching for the blue ghosts invisible to my human eyes. "No specters here at the moment…"

"No one is watching."

We looked at July. He'd turned slightly to face us, straight-backed and motionless with his gray eyes fixed on nothing on particular.

"I'll be right back." I propelled myself out of the chair and walked back down the hallway to my bedroom. The adjoining bathroom was dark, and I didn't bother turning the light on while I splashed cold water on my face. Its sting on my skin was enough to help me clear my head—or at least help me process the fact that any number of eyes might have been watching me at any given moment. I scowled at my dark reflection in the mirror and turned to leave. As an after thought, I went back to grab my small, handheld mirror before returning to the living room.

"C'mere, July."

He turned away from the window and crossed the room, in no particular hurry.

"Here." I held the mirror out to him. "Can you send your specter out with that?"

He nodded and took the mirror in his hands, flattening the palm of one in the center of the glass. When I sat down on the floor with Bard, July followed and sat down across from me. My curiosity flared when he reached out and gave one of Bard's bear-sized paws an experimental pat. He withdrew his hand a second later, when Bard's tongue flicked across the backs of his knuckles.

I glanced at Jack. The downward pull of his eyebrows indicated I wasn't the only one perplexed by the interaction. But I was more willing to accept it as something a kid would do and move on.

I resumed rubbing circles along Bard's skull and felt the warmth of his breath against my leg when he sighed. "So what happens when you and July aren't around to play watchdogs and look for specters?" I asked Jack.

He picked up his coffee mug and took a drink, still eyeballing July. "Can the _actual_ watchdog see specters?"

I looked down at Bard for an answer. He only grunted. _No._

Jack gave a thoughtful hum and set his mug down on the table before crossing his arms. A self-satisfied grin split his face as he said, "The obvious solution is to never leave my sight, hm?" and I tried not to let my expression give away my surprise at how seamlessly the Jack I saw now melded with the Jack I remembered.

_Maybe worrying is good for him._

In the years spanning the gap between his abrupt departure from Cambridge and now, I'd imagined him differently. We'd been in touch, of course, though our communications hadn't been more substantial than letters and emails and the odd phone call. The one time we met face to face in our six-year estrangement had been at a funeral, and hadn't lasted more than a couple minutes. Just long enough for him to offer his condolences and a hug before he had to be off to the airport.

I must have been looking at him strangely, because I snapped out of my thoughts to see his pale blue eyes glinting over a sage smile like he knew what I was thinking.

"May I take your stunned silence for agreement?"

I snorted. Okay, so he definitely wasn't a telepath.

"As interesting as playing your shadow sounds, I'm going to have to pass."

He feigned a look of disappointment, as if my answer were unexpected.

I huffed out a long breath and let my voice go quiet, because I was certain he wasn't going to like what I was about to say. "I just want to track her down and finish this."

As if a gear had been switched, the worry lines came back, netting across Jack's forehead as his expression turned serious again. "I would prefer to be with you for that. Especially after your last foray into the world of Contractors went so badly."

"It didn't go _that_ badly," I argued, defensive despite the fact I knew he was more right than I cared to admit. If not for Bard, I might not have made it back to Shinjuku with all my senses still intact. And who knew what might have happened with BK-201 if he hadn't intervened and I hadn't gotten off a lucky shot.

I wasn't sure I wanted to think about the end, when the masked Contractor pinned me to the floor, his hand pressed to my skull and my gun between his eyes. A standoff that had ended with something like a truce. Or, knowing what I knew now, maybe a promise to finish it another time. I'd screened that detail from Jack, and I sure as hell wasn't going to bring it up now.

"We obviously have different understandings of the word _bad_," he said, rubbing his temples as if our talk had given him a headache.

"I'll be more careful. But she must have told Kane and the others about her price and—"

"No no no no no," Jack said quickly, his hand raised to stop me as if I'd just turned down a closed road and he was the traffic cop sending me back. "We don't know what her price is."

"I think I do. I just… need to be sure."

"So your plan is to… what?" He raised his eyebrows when I shrugged, reluctant to answer. A note of incredulity had crept into his voice when he finished, "Use yourself as bait? Draw her out and test your theory? What happens if you're wrong?"

"When you say it like that…"

"I've been fishing before, Charlie, and it never ends well for the bait. You're either skewered on a hook, or you're skewered on a hook in the stomach of some fish. Not. Pleasant."

"Look. I know you're not crazy about it"—He snorted at the understatement—"but it's not like I'm helpless. I have a few tricks up my sleeve. And poison. And guns."

"Which are illegal, by the way," he pointed out. "And if you're caught with them, you're screwed six ways from Sunday."

"You have one."

"_I_ have permission."

"Well, aren't you special?" I taunted around a wry grin. He responded with a broad smile that said _yes, yes he was_. I rolled my eyes and laughed.

His sense of humor really hadn't changed much, and I was starting to wonder why, for the longest time, I'd believed that it had. The abruptness of his departure—and his parting sentiments—had colored my perception, I knew. I'd thought of him as something stoic, emotionless, and completely rational—seeing July, I recognized that I'd thought of Jack as a Doll. Just kind of… void. Of feeling, of personality. Of everything. Although, I was beginning to see that that perception wasn't quite right, even when it came to Dolls. Something was in there—in both Jack and July. And while I had no past model to compare July against in his current form, I had plenty to compare Jack to.

He was almost the same, except for a fundamental shift I still struggled to understand. I thought it might come down to methodology, to some kind of personal philosophy that had shifted from something human to something utterly and unshakably logical.

_The flat shape of him, silhouetted against the orange sunset so perfectly framed in our bedroom window. Miles away. "Love should not exist in a rational world, Charlie. It makes us all so stupidly vulnerable."_

I squeezed my eyes shut, forcing the memory to dissolve.

"You all right?"

"Yeah." I scrubbed my hands over my face and hoped it was enough to mask the lie. "Lack of sleep is catching up to me, I guess."

"Go back to bed," he suggested. "I'll go with you. I don't think July'll mind staying with Bard."

My fingers pressed against my cheekbones as I peered at him over my hand. His tone only slightly hinted at humor, and there wasn't much more of it in his face. His eyes had softened, and nothing about the gentle, barely-there smile he wore was particularly suggestive.

Still, I couldn't help being a little wary. "You think sleeping together is a good idea?"

"_Sleeping_, yes." This time, there was obvious humor in the way he emphasized the word, as if amused I thought of it as anything other than innocent. And in that peculiar way he had of reassuring me, he sighed, veering away from the topic completely, and patted the phonebook still splayed open on the table. "I'll call the vet in a few hours when you call Li."

"…Okay."

Bard, apparently paying more attention than I'd thought, sat up halfway and pivoted on his haunches, shuffling to the side so he could rest his head on July's knee. The boy only blinked at the large, furry head that suddenly took up most of his lap, completely covering his hand and the mirror.

I felt a smile pulling at my mouth as I held the bag of ice out to him. Jack stood up and took it instead, refroze it, and passed it to July. When he offered me a hand, I took it, trying not to focus on how small my hand felt in his, and let him pull me to my feet.

The fingers of my other hand brushed the top of July's hat as I turned towards the hallway. "You know, if you feel like talking, Bard's a good listener."

"Mm." His head bobbed once in a small nod.

Jack followed me down the hallway to the bedroom; I turned around when his footsteps stopped at the door.

"Are you a vampire? Do I have to invite you in?" I asked. I tried to hide it, but he must've been able to read the uneasiness in my posture, my face, my voice. Or maybe he was just drawing on past experience. It could have been anything.

"You can relax, Charlie," he said, his voice almost unbearably gentle.

I stopped letting myself think—the pull towards the past was much too strong; I could feel my mind slipping back, cutting through the years as my memory rose in a swell of feeling.

_I'm tired_. That was the excuse I gave myself. I was tired, and I needed to sleep. I needed to close my eyes and stop seeing Hemlock and Kane and BK-201 dancing on the backs of my eyelids. And Jack was good for that. Time hadn't eroded my trust in him, even if it should have. Even if I wasn't quite sure who he was anymore, I knew what we _weren't_.

He was safe.

"I'll set my alarm for nine," I said, busying myself with punching buttons on my phone. "That'll be a few hours, at least. Better than nothing."

I sat down on the edge of the bed and set my phone on the nightstand. Jack shucked off his coat and his shoes, and sat down on the opposite side of the bed.

"Sorry I'm making this awkward," I said.

"Ha." He looked at me sidelong over his shoulder. "No funny business with your hands, all right?"

I stretched out and punched the back of his arm. "Jerk."

He laughed and twisted around to capture me. It was less a tackle than a controlled descent onto the pillows. Lying on top of the covers, I curled up against him and tucked my head under his chin. The fit was familiar—natural in the way our bodies remembered how to puzzle together. If I closed my eyes and just breathed, taking in the wintry scent of him, I could feel the tethers slipping from my mind. I drifted, like a ship with no anchor, out of time, out of Japan.

I slept. I knew, because I dreamt. The bedroom window was open, a cool breeze carried in the sounds of the River Cam, the voices of students and tourists out on the water, far off church bells chiming to mark the time.

When I opened my eyes, awakened by my vibrating phone, I quickly shut it off. The window was closed, the shades down, and there was no breeze. I lay still for a while longer, my forehead pressed against the warmth of Jack's chest. His heartbeat thumped against my skin five times for every sleep-deepened breath. Every few seconds, I felt him exhale into my hair.

"Hey," I whispered. "Are you awake?"

"Yeah," his voice answered in the dark. "I'm right here."

I smiled and inhaled deeply, meaning to build up my resolve to roll over. But I didn't. Whether it was sleep or something else, neither of us was quite ready to pull away.

* * *

A/N: SO MUCH NOVEMBER.

I'm sorry, ya'll. I promise this really is a Hei/OC story. For real. But November's not around for the last half of this thing… because of reasons… and the next chapter is all Li! Finally. And he "meets" Jack.

Handshake of doom is imminent.

About Today—The National


	5. Hello Time Bomb

A/N: I'm alive! Midterms are over, and I dedicated my weekend to finishing this chapter. It's been sitting on my computer half-finished for weeks, and I'm still not happy with it, but it's going up anyway because I really want to write the next one. My sincerest apologies for the wait and for the typos I know I missed. This one's full of Charlie saying _hey_ and Li pretending it's not giving him panic attacks, so maybe that'll make up for it?

For your ears: Hello Time Bomb by Matthew Good

Also, this is kind of like a _Where's Waldo_ chapter. EVERYBODY's in it. Except for Misaki.

Misaki is not in this chapter.

OR IS SHE?

* * *

Chapter 5: Hello Time Bomb

I was sitting at the kitchen table, carefully pulling butterfly stitches across the laceration on the heel of my left hand. Last night, after using a pair of forceps to pull the glass out—just a small splinter—I'd feared I would need actual stitches. Seeing it now, the cut wasn't as bad as I'd thought. Tape was enough.

"Would have made a lovely tracking device."

I could hear the teasing note in Jack's tone, but I looked up and shot him a _don't-push-it_ glare anyway. Something in me felt off-kilter after my dream. I wasn't bothered so much that my mind had taken me back in time, back to Cambridge. It did that on a much-too-regular basis anyway, taunting me with the echo of a memory. I'd built up a resistance to it over the years, stopped noticing the aching hole it left in my chest. What bothered me was that, this time—

—this time, nothing had changed. I'd waited for it, fully expecting that feeling of loss to hit me since Jack was _right there_ and he was holding me and it felt like it used to and I could pretend nothing had changed even though everything had. But I hadn't felt suddenly empty. And now I was scared that maybe I'd shut down; maybe I should have wished for the way things were, but I'd made myself numb to it.

Except… I knew that wasn't entirely true.

I frowned down at my hands and hoped that, if Jack was watching, he'd think it was in concentration, or even pain, as I pinched the edges of the laceration together and smoothed another piece of tape over it.

There weren't many things I was certain about, but one of them was that I still cared for Jack. How much and in what way were points I was figuring out.

Done patching myself up, I closed the first-aid kit and gathered the plastic backings from the stitches to throw in the trash. Sitting next to Jack on the couch in the living area, July tracked me across the kitchen with his slate-colored eyes.

I had nothing against July—in fact, I rather liked the strange, quiet boy—but I hadn't exactly come to terms with the fact that he was keeping track of me for Jack. Learning that Hemlock most likely had a troop of Dolls doing the same thing had me constantly fighting the urge to look over my shoulder. Even though I wouldn't see anything, not even if the specters were there.

"Someone is in the hallway," said July.

I shook my head as if my thoughts were something physical I could dispel if I applied enough force, but they settled at the back of my mind, heavy and clouded. I glanced at the door, then at July. "Is it Li?"

July sighed—even a simple sound like that lacked inflection. "Black hair. Blue eyes."

"It's Li," I confirmed, glancing around the room for Bard. I didn't see him, and thought he might have retreated to the darkness of the bedroom to rest. I almost hated to go after him, just in case he _had_ finally managed to go to sleep. I was about to go look for him anyway when I glanced back at Jack, hearing the creak of the couch as he and July stood.

"Hey."

"What?"

I waited till Jack was looking at me and dropped my voice to a whisper. "Did you get her messier code from him?"

"From who?"

"Li."

Jack shook his head. "No, why?"

"Who'd you get it from?"

That smug smile crept across his face again, lending a boyish, mischievous gleam to his eyes as he walked towards me. "I'm afraid my sources are confidential," he said, his smile turning to a playful smirk. "But I might be persuaded to give them up for something in return."

"Ha." I quirked an eyebrow at the thinly veiled suggestion. "Everything you say sounds so charming with that accent."

"Yes, I know," he said, drawing out each perfectly formed, perfectly British syllable. "Is it working?"

"Nope." I swung towards the door, trying very hard not to giggle as Li knocked and I reached for the handle. I braced an arm against the frame and smiled, laughter lingering in my expression. "Hey."

I realized I'd probably answered the door too quickly when his eyes widened in surprise. But he recovered faster than I did, his eyes softening into an affable smile. "Good morning."

"Thanks for coming. I know it's kind of early." Nine-ish was still early, right? I stepped back to make room for him. "Come on in. I've got to go find the dog."

He stepped past me into the foyer. If I hadn't been looking down, I might not have caught the small hitch in his stride when he noticed Jack standing a few feet away. I glanced up; saw Jack's eyes narrow as he tilted his head. The lurch in his expression was familiar enough that I knew he was about to break social convention—polite introductions be damned.

"Sorry. Have we met?" he asked abruptly.

The door clicked shut behind me.

"No, I don't think so," said Li, some of the brightness gone from his voice. And Jack just stood there, staring as if he were studying a painting whose name escaped him.

I'd been about to run down the hallway to get Bard, but I hesitated and glanced between them. "Uh… Jack, meet Li. Li, this is Jack, my boss."

I thought that would get at least a smirk from Jack, but he hardly seemed to have heard. I waited a little longer, watching a few more seconds of intent staring, before turning down the hallway. I heard Jack say something—hopefully _hello, nice to meet you_, but probably not—as I poked my head into the bedroom. The blankets were still rumpled. I hadn't bothered with them; a good thing since Bard was sprawled across the foot of the bed. One of his ears twitched in my direction.

"You make a better welcoming committee than Jack."

He groaned.

"Let's go get your teeth fixed, huh?"

Another groan as he pulled himself off the bed. He slunk towards me, using his first few steps to stretch the stiffness out of his joints. Had the situation been different, I probably would have teased him about being an old man like I usually did, but Bard _was_ getting old. I saw it especially clearly now that he was injured, and it wasn't something I was too keen on thinking about. I'd known from the beginning that wolfhounds lived short lives; I'd only recently had to begin considering the possibility that Bard might be approaching retirement.

Unaware of my inner turmoil, he poked his nose under my hand and trudged into the hallway. His tail perked up at the same moment I noticed the strange, staticky chill in the air. I rubbed my arms as goose bumps prickled across my skin.

"Jeez, is there a draft in here?" I paused in the threshold between the hallway and the foyer in time to see an unsmiling-Jack release an unsmiling-Li from a handshake.

"Is there?" Jack asked. He finally managed a pleasant expression, but I thought it probably had more to do with July quietly walking to his side and taking his hand than feigning politeness. "I didn't notice."

I narrowed my eyes at him. If I'd learned to associate anything with Jack, it was the various meanings of the word _cold_. I couldn't be sure he understood the _what-are-you-doing?_ look I gave him—if he did, he ignored it.

Bard chose that moment to scratch at the door, and we all turned towards the sound as if it were the most interesting thing ever.

"Guess we should get going," I said. I darted into the kitchen and grabbed my bag, which was conspicuously lighter without the weight of BK-201's knives. I spared the pair of silver blades a glance as I turned away from the table. I was thinking about their strange shape, the way the metal hilts had felt in my hands, when I looked up and noticed Li watching me. He smiled.

"We'll walk out with you," Jack said. He led July to the door and opened it enough for Bard to slip out.

"He needs a leash or I'll get deported."

Jack laughed as I rummaged around in my bag for the leash I'd been using. "Oops. Better hurry—I think he's calling the lift."

"Bard!"

"He knows how to push the elevator button?" Li was the last one out and pulled the door shut behind him. "Smart dog."

"Too smart, sometimes."

The elevator's gleaming doors were just yawning open as we reached them. We piled in, moving to separate corners with Bard sitting in the middle. In the time it took for me to snap the leash onto his collar, the doors were opening again to let Jack and July off.

Hand resting on top of July's ever-present hat, Jack guided the boy off the elevator and heaved a dramatic sigh. "Guess we better go see who made the assassination list today."

I barked a laugh that fell somewhere between surprise and mortification, and wondered if I should acknowledge Li's alarmed expression.

"That was a joke," Jack said over his shoulder as the elevator doors began to close between us. I barely caught his amused smile. "As far as you know, anyway."

"You keep an eye on him, July!" The doors thudded closed on his name, but I thought I heard the boy's answering "Mm" from the other side. I looked at Li and quickly said, "He _was_ joking. There's no list."

He looked at me askance, blue eyes narrowed over an uneasy smile as if he didn't quite believe me. "Seems like an interesting guy to work for."

"Yes… Very." I busied my hands with adjusting the strap of my bag across my chest and shoulder, it's weight settling against my hip. "Had you two met before?"

"Not that I remember, but we might've passed each other on the street or something."

I nodded. "He's not the best at socializing. I tell him all the time, but social conventions aren't really his thing."

"You tell that to your boss?"

"Well, him being my boss is kind of secondary."

"Oh." His eyebrows rose as his face filled with understanding. "You two are—"

"No! Ha, no…"

Bard's head swiveled around, and damn it if he wasn't raising his eyebrows, too. My stomach twisted into a knot as if the elevator had just begun to free-fall to the ground floor.

"We're not together," I said firmly. "We're just old friends."

"So, July…?"

… _is a seven-year-old Doll working as an agent for MI-6._ But since I couldn't exactly tell Li that, I said the next most ridiculous thing that came to mind. "He's Jack's son."

"Ah. They look a lot alike."

"Yeah, they do." And they did, didn't they? At thirty-eight, Jack was plenty old enough to have a seven-year-old son, too—had I known the timelines didn't match up, I might have entertained the idea that July actually _was_ his.

"Do you have the vet's address?" Li asked.

I pulled my phone out of my pocket and thumbed over the note I'd made. "Right here."

He nodded as I leaned over to show him the screen. "It's not too far from here. A fifteen-minute walk, maybe. Do you mind walking?"

"Fine with me. Might be hard to get a taxi with Bard, anyway."

"That's true."

I decided I liked his smile. He did it a lot—an endearing mixture of friendliness and timidity. Even when he'd picked me up at the airport, I'd gotten the impression he was one of those perpetually easy-going people who took everything in stride. Not quite the _never met a stranger_ type Jack could be, but still easy to talk to.

_Nice_. Maybe that was the word I was looking for. But it felt too simple.

Li tilted his head at Bard as the elevator reached the bottom floor and the doors dinged open. "What happened to him?"

I gathered Bard's leash in my hands and stepped out. "A couple of his teeth broke off last night, and he won't eat or drink anything."

"Sounds rough," Li said, a note of sympathy in his voice.

"Yeah. Thanks again for doing this."

Another smile. "Of course."

Morning sunlight streamed in through the lobby windows, illuminating the front desk and the woman sitting behind it with a golden glow. She gave a polite smile and said what sounded like "good morning" as I handed over my key.

Li held the exit door open for Bard and me, and, suddenly, we were out on the bustling Shinjuku street. It was like walking out of a movie theater after the credits and into the noisy, incoming crowd.

"How is it living on the top floor?" Li asked.

"Surprisingly quiet." I appreciated it right at that moment, now that I felt like I'd just been dropped into the middle of an overturned anthill. "I figured out how to get up on the roof, too. The city's really bright, but you can still see most of the stars."

The noise made talking difficult, so we fell into silence and concentrated on weaving through the crowd.

I stuck close to him, walking side-by-side when space allowed, and keeping an eye on the back of his white shirt when the crowd thickened. I tried to remember the path we were taking; I looked for landmarks, but the combined problems of my lack of a good-night's sleep and the sheer number of would-be landmarks made it impossible. To be honest, I'd never enjoyed big cities very much. All their smells and colors and people and street-mazes. Sensory overload generally meant I found them more exhausting than energizing, and it wasn't like I had that much energy to spare anyway.

Bard made the commute more bearable—people were less likely to bump and jostle when faced with a bear-sized, grumpy-looking dog. I kept a hand on Bard's shoulders, and I gave his ears a rub every now and then. He kept pinning them back so they pressed flat against his skull, and the way he held his jaw slightly open made it look like he was snarling. I thought maybe he was.

I was sure his current predicament didn't help much, but crowds weren't really his thing, either.

By the time we reached the vet's office, Li was the only one of us who didn't look harried. Bard jumped into one of the chairs in the waiting area and refused to move, while I stood at the front desk listening to Li translate the secretary's broken English. We were the first ones there, so we didn't have to wait long before the veterinarian walked Bard and me back to the examination room.

The vet was a middle-aged man with streaks of gray in his hair. His eyes were a dark, unusual shade of green; I only noticed because the blue scrubs he wore under his lab coat made them stand out. He could speak English well enough that even Bard understood what was about to happen, which was probably why, I thought, he tried to sneak out when one of the assistants crossed through the examination room and left the door open. Had he been the size of a normal dog, he might have made his escape, but I caught his tail and called him back.

He put up with having his mouth pulled open and poked around in, but the temperature-taking business didn't go so smoothly. Even I felt awkward about it and stared at the ceiling the whole time. When it was over, Bard just stood there looking embarrassed with his tail tucked between his legs.

"Is a good dog." The vet gave Bard's head a vigorous rub that left pieces of his fur standing on end. "Eight is old for dog his size. You notice him slowing down?"

"He still gets around okay." I caught Bard's eye and gave him a reassuring smile. Thoughts of his retirement came floating back to me, but I wasn't going to talk about it now. "He gets stiff in the mornings and whenever it's cold out."

"Don't we all," said the vet. "I have two options for teeth. Both are surgical, so he'll stay here for while. I either remove completely, or cap with titanium crowns."

Bard's ears perked up.

"Titanium crowns?"

"Is very common—especially among _Schutzhund_ and police dogs."

"He's not really a guard dog or anything like that…"

"He chews a lot?"

Bard snorted and stared at me, brown eyes unblinking. He couldn't talk, but I got the message.

"Yes," I said. "Go ahead put in the crowns."

Bard wagged his tail.

"Very good, very good." The vet grabbed his clipboard and scribbled a line of notes across the page before handing it to me. "Take to front desk. We work him in this morning, and you pick him up in few hours?"

"All right. Thank you." I stood and tousled Bard's ears one last time before reaching for the door. "You be good, okay?"

When I walked out to the waiting area, Li excused himself from a conversation with a squat, older man holding a black cat. A few other people had gathered as well, most with small dogs, though one woman had a brightly colored macaw sitting on her shoulder.

I handed the vet's paper to the secretary and folded my arms across the top of the tall desk as Li walked up.

"How'd it go?"

"He's getting titanium teeth."

Li wrinkled his nose. "Like dentures?"

"Doggy dentures," I laughed, shaking my head. "No, they're just caps. He likes to chew on things—" Like vials of poison and metal cables. "—so it's worth it, I guess."

"I see."

According to Li, the secretary would call once Bard was ready to be picked up, so I made sure my phone was turned up loud enough that I could hear it before we left. I thought I heard something growl as the door swung shut. One of the dogs, I figured, except I heard it again a few paces down the sidewalk.

I looked at Li, a sheepish blush creeping across his nose. I tried to stifle my snort of laughter, but failed. "Is that your stomach?"

He rubbed at the back of his head self-consciously. "I guess breakfast is wearing off."

"Well…" I pulled out my phone to look at the time. "How about brunch? My treat. As a thank you."

"You don't have to do that," he said. A second later, his stomach gave a contradictory rumble.

I couldn't help laughing again. "I insist. I don't know where anything is, though, so you have to lead the way."

"All right."

I was momentarily surprised when he took my hand and abruptly turned against the flow of traffic, forging a path down the sidewalk against the pull of the crowd. It was different now, without Bard. I felt the vacancy at my side as a sharply unsettling emptiness; my large, furry shield was missing. But Li did well enough, cutting through open spaces and towing me along so I wouldn't get swept away. Right then, he reminded me of Bard—enthused by the promise of food. We travelled several blocks in this way before a corner stand caught my eye.

"Hey—"

He stopped so abruptly that I walked into him.

"Whoa. Sorry. You mind if we stop here for a second?" I pointed at the cigarette stand and the posters of a smoking woman exhaling a white cloud pasted onto the walls.

Li's blue eyes followed my finger, and then shifted back to me with a flash of surprise. "You smoke?"

"No, can't stand it, actually. I just owe Jack a pack."

"Oh. Yeah, sure." He released my hand and I strode up to the window. The pedestrian traffic was lighter here; I could move without fearing the crush of bodies shifting to fill the empty space left in my wake.

"Do you have any packs of _Death_?" I asked, grinning at the irony as I rummaged through the front pocket of my bag for the change I could feel jingling there. I'd only given the silver-haired girl sitting on the opposite side of the window a passing glance, so I nearly missed her small voice when she slid a black and white pack across the counter.

"It's free."

I paused, hand still in my bag. "Free?" It wasn't usually my nature to look a gift horse in the mouth—Free things? Yes, please.—but the unexpectedness of this small kindness had me peering through the glass at the girl inside. "Are you sure? I've probably got the exact change here somewhere."

"It's free," the girl said again, her voice oddly flat. Not out of annoyance, as far as I could tell. In fact, there didn't seem to be any emotion in her tone at all—as if she were channeling July. I might have thought offering free cigarettes was a standard part of her day except for what she said next. "Thank you for saving him."

"For saving—?" I blinked hard before shaking my head to clear the cobwebs out. The girl's voice was so quiet, I'd probably misheard her. "For saving who?" I asked.

The girl's violet eyes stared straight ahead, fixed on the pack of cigarettes still perched on the counter with a subtle intensity her voice lacked. Her eyes didn't follow the pack when I picked it up and dropped it into my bag. She didn't say anything, either, and I began to wonder if she'd heard me.

"If you're sure…"

She nodded.

I smiled a little unsurely. "Thanks." When I turned around and looked at Li, he only shrugged. "I'm pretty sure I've never met her before," I said under my breath as we started walking again.

"What did she say?"

"She thanked me for saving someone. But the only person I've _saved_ is—" My gait faltered when I glanced back at the cigarette stand, but I couldn't see the girl from where I was now, and I kept walking, letting my brain make it's implausible little connections.

"You saved someone?" Li asked.

"No, I… Sort of?" It didn't really count if I'd saved him from something I'd done to him in the first place, did it? All I'd done was restore the status quo. "It was someone I probably shouldn't have bothered with in the first place. But she couldn't know about that."

An image of July flashed through my head. It made me pause, considering the unlikely possibility. What if she was a Doll? She could have known about it then.

"Who was it?"

"What?" I blinked and looked up into Li's interested expression. His eyes held my own, calm and blue.

"Who'd you save?"

"Oh. I don't know." I tugged at a lock of my hair and turned sideways to slip through an opening in the crowd. "I didn't really get a good look at his face. I know he had black hair kind of like yours, and that's about it."

He nodded, lips pressed into a thin line. Before I could interpret the expression, we were turning onto a more crowded street and another wave of people was upon us. I took his hand again and let him pull me through. By the time we reached the little ramen house he'd selected, I was more than ready to sit down for a while. The place was—thankfully—empty, except for a man who seemed to be narrating something to his bowl of noodles and the pink-haired girl sitting across from him.

We took a table near the back and ordered. I went to college, so I'd eaten my fair share of ramen, but never the kind that didn't come in microwavable cups. While we waited, I asked for a pot of coffee.

"You drink coffee?" I asked Li as I poured myself a cup.

"Not really."

"That's probably good. I wish I'd never started. I don't think I'd be able to function without it, now."

An amused smile pulled at his mouth. "Why not just take a nap?"

I shrugged, the warmth of the coffee mug seeping into my fingers as I raised it to my lips. "I don't know. Sometimes I feel like I'm wasting time by napping when I could be doing other things." I took a quick drink and shook my head. "Sleep can be so troublesome!"

"That's true," he agreed, laughing. It was a clear, musical sound, easy and genuine. "School and work would be easier if we could get on without it."

"If only," I mused. "What are you doing till school starts up again?"

"Odd jobs here and there. And a lot of studying."

"Ah, studying." I set my cup down and stirred in a spoonful of sugar. "Most of the time, I don't miss it."

"Just most of the time?"

"Ha. I guess school is what I miss, and the work and the studying, not so much. It's just, with school, there's a path to follow. There's no guessing about what you've got to get done to graduate. Now I feel like I'm just wandering."

"But you're here on business, right?" he asked, head canted to the side. "That doesn't sound like you're just wandering."

"Yeah, well…" I tapped the spoon against the rim of my cup and set it down on a napkin. An earthy brown stain slowly spread from its center. "I don't want to be doing what I'm doing forever."

"What _are _you doing? I don't think you ever said."

"I'm kind of… off the books at the moment," I hedged. "I thought I was going to be a doctor—started med school and everything, but I left after two years." I pursed my lips. "That was five years ago."

Li's eyes widened as he leaned forward, resting his elbows on the table. "Med school's a big deal. Why'd you leave?"

"My sister." I didn't really intend to stop there, but the rest of my explanation got stuck in my throat. Like it was a freakin' code word and I forgot how to talk at the first mention of it.

Li's shoulders stiffened, and he nodded as if in understanding, like maybe I didn't have to say what had happened because that word said it for me.

"You have a sister?" I asked.

"Mm."

"Older or younger?"

He looked down at the table, his eyes hardening. "She was younger."

I leaned back in my chair, fingers still wrapped around the coffee mug. I wasn't cold, but the heat gave me something to anchor myself to as I nodded, comprehending. "Mine was older."

He looked up then, his eyes still hard and much different from before. He seemed world-weary, and I wondered if I'd undergone the same transformation. Maybe we both looked exhausted for no good reason.

"She was attacked the day I finished my pre-clinical phase," I explained. "She wanted me to keep going." I shrugged and pulled the coffee mug to the edge of the table, balancing it there as steam curled off the top. "I guess I might one day, but there's something else I have to do first. She's the reason I came to Japan, actually."

Li was quiet, but I caught the miniscule nod of his head.

"You, too?"

Another nod, this one bigger.

Any other time, and I might have felt the thorn of morbid curiosity prompting me to ask what had happened, but I didn't. I felt like I already knew, and talking about it at this point wouldn't accomplish anything. At any rate, Li plainly didn't feel like telling the story, and I harbored no desire to hear the tale of another dead sister. I already knew how it ended anyway.

I picked up the spoon and swirled it around my cup a few times, the metal clanging against the glass like the clapper in a bell. "This took a depressing turn, didn't it?" I forced a smile and hoped what they said about smiling to trick yourself into feeling happy was true. It felt backwards to me, but whatever. "And I never answered your question, did I? I'm a shady freelancer. That's what I am."

I could feel Li eyeballing me as I chugged what was left in my cup and poured myself another. If he found my ambitious intake of caffeine at all alarming, he didn't say so. "You don't seem _that_ shady. A little odd, sure…"

I nearly choked. "Odd?" I sputtered.

Li nodded as if it were self-explanatory. "You're an American who calls herself a shady freelancer, you're working for a man who might be a British assassin—"

"He's really not," I interjected, though I suspected I was lying.

"—and you're buying your dog titanium teeth."

"He'll use them!"

Li laughed and shook his head, pushing away a swath of black hair when it fell in front of his eyes.

I crossed my arms. "Okay, you've got me pegged." I waved a hand dismissively before pointing at him. "Now it's my turn to profile you."

"All right." He sat up a little straighter, like a student about to take a test, and looked at me expectantly. A small smile dimpled the corners of his mouth.

"You speak Mandarin, Japanese, and English fluently, right?"

"Yes."

"You speak any other languages?"

"Spanish and Portuguese."

In an effort to disguise my surprise—and jealousy, because mastering American and British English was hard enough—I picked up my coffee and blew on it, watching him with narrowed eyes over the rim. "South America?" I guessed.

He nodded.

"All right. You're a well-travelled linguist, you have a strong interest in the alien sky, and you're helping a shady American and her dog navigate Tokyo. Anything else to add to your resume? A secret identity, perhaps?"

He heaved a despairing sigh. "You've got me."

"Thought so," I said, smug. "Seriously, though. Why'd you pick astronomy?"

"Because of the old stars." The answer came easily, and his eyes softened as he said it. "They always fascinated me when I was a kid, and then, when they disappeared…"

When he didn't go on, I asked, "You think they'll ever come back?"

"I don't know. I don't think they're really gone—just covered up by the new stars."

"All right, so I'm curious." I leaned forward over the table and lowered my voice. An almost-empty ramen house was as good a place as any to talk about this, right? "What do you believe about the new stars?"

He turned his head, as if listening from a new angle would change the question. "What do you mean?"

"You know what I mean." Despite the mild surprise that tightened his expression, I pressed on. "What are they? I already told you my theory. That they represent the lives of certain people?"

He gave a reluctant nod. "Mm. You did."

"And? Don't lie and say you don't have a theory. If you study the stars, you must have one."

He started to laugh, but it turned into a long exhale when he realized I was being serious. "All right. I guess I believe the same thing as you, then."

This time, I was the one who straightened with surprise. "Really?" And my brain—dammit, my brain—started making all these leaps and bounds it had no business even thinking about just yet. But even as the waitress, a pretty teenaged girl, arrived with two steaming bowls of noodles and vegetables, I was trying to figure out how to ask Li if he knew about Contractors and Dolls and their specters, and if he did, had he ever heard of a woman named—

"There's an all-you-can-eat special today," said the girl. I was semi-intimidated by the one large bowl in front of me, but Li seemed pleased with the news. He was taller than me and athletically built, so I thought he'd finish off two bowls, maybe three. Not twelve. By the tenth, I was fighting the urge to peek under the table to see if he was slipping the noodles to a huddle of hungry orphans or something. By the eleventh, I'd just accepted I was eating brunch with a freak of nature.

I didn't know how to bring up the stars again after that—not because I'd just witnessed a truly spectacular demonstration of overeating, but because more people were filing through the doors and sitting down. Business types, mostly, probably on their lunch breaks. The room was soon humming with the low drone of conversation, almost exclusively in a language I didn't understand.

"What do you want to do now?" Li asked.

A little more than two hours had passed since dropping Bard off, so we elected to start wandering back in the direction of the vet's office. Li chose quieter walking paths; we wound up covering more distance, but the decreased pedestrian traffic was worth it. The air was no longer heavy with noise; I could hear myself thinking and take the time to observe my surroundings.

I'd already seen the industrialized, business-centric parts of Shinjuku, so full of tall, shining, metal buildings. The quieter areas, mostly residential, were older and tightly packed together to maximize space. Despite the dim sensation of claustrophobia cloying my senses, these were the areas I liked better. They were calm; even though morning had passed, the footpaths between the buildings seemed full of the feeling of just waking up.

"Oi, Li-san!"

My head snapped around so quickly that my neck cracked. I stood there rubbing it as I looked for the owner of the impossibly shrill voice, startled when my eyes fell on the unlikely form of a tiny old lady brandishing a broom nearly as tall as she was.

Li turned towards her with his hands in his pockets. "Oh! Oyama-san!"

The small woman said something in Japanese as she waddled towards us, but I didn't realize it was about me until the broom handle was leveled at my face. Out of reflex, I leaned away, but she was sort of half-smiling as she stared up at me.

"Ah, Oyama-san…" Li reached out with one pale hand and carefully lowered the broom. "This is Charlotte. She's visiting from America."

The woman blinked and shifted into English. "An American, huh? We've got a couple of those here."

I shook my head. "Sorry?"

"Oyama-san is my landlady," Li explained, nodding first at the woman and then at the apartment building behind her.

"Buncha foreigners," said the woman. She swung the broom around so it was resting against her shoulder. "You know, there's an opening if you need a place to stay! Right next to Li, actually." At this, her eyes narrowed and shifted between us. "Say, Li, is this your girlfriend?"

My eyebrows shot up at the unexpected question; Li turned bright red and waved his hands back and forth. "N-No! What gave you that idea?"

"Just asking." She turned to me and leaned in, shielding the side of her mouth with her hand to whisper to me, "He's such a good boy, sometimes I wonder why someone hasn't scooped him up yet."

I tried not to laugh, but I couldn't help it. Part of it was out of embarrassment—I could feel my ears getting hot—but the landlady's smug expression and Li's utterly miserable one had something to do with it, too.

"Anyway. You haven't seen that cat around here today, have you?"

Still blushing, Li pulled a hand through his hair and looked down at his feet. "No, not today."

"Good." The landlady spun on her heel and strutted away, heading back to the apartments. "Maybe I ran him off for good this time. You two youngsters go on, now!"

Li quickly took my elbow and started up the narrow footpath, mumbling apologies.

"No girlfriend, huh?" I teased. "Someone's looking out for you."

"She means well. Most of the time."

"Between your landlady and my boss—"

My phone cut me off. The number was restricted, but I figured it was the vet's office and answered anyway. "Hello?"

No reply. Someone was on the other end; I could hear city sounds in the background, covered by some kind of white noise that might have been breathing.

"Hello?" I repeated. "Is this—?"

"Charlotte. Still in Tokyo?"

I stopped walking. Li turned to look at me, a crease forming between his eyebrows.

"Who is this?" It was a man's voice and, though it sounded familiar, I couldn't place who it belonged to.

"_Tsk tsk_. Short memory. That wasn't a question by the way—I've got eyes on you right now. Perhaps I wasn't clear enough when I asked you to leave."

Kane. The physical effort it took not to whirl around and look for him made my muscles ache. "Still hiding in the shadows, I see." And yeah, maybe in retrospect taunting him wasn't the best idea, but I wasn't the cautious, delicate type. "I want to see her first."

The traffic sounds all but disappeared, as if he'd ducked down an alley. A few seconds later, some kind of muffled, mechanical _ding_ told me he'd probably walked into some kind of store. So he wasn't nearby… If he really did have eyes on me, they weren't his.

"Who's your companion?"

I looked sharply at Li, my eyes widening. _Damn it all._ "Why?"

Tipped off by my expression, Li turned and came a step closer to me, the last vestiges of his blush giving way to a concerned scowl. "What's wrong?"

I only shook my head. Kane was laughing. "How'd you get this number?" I demanded.

Somewhere on the other end of the line, a dog barked. "Goodbye, Charlotte."

"Wait!" My phone beeped; Kane ended the call.

If he hadn't already been able to tell, the steady stream of curses I unleashed as I scrolled through my call history all but confirmed the answer to Li's question: "Is everything okay?"

Answering seemed pointless, so I didn't. "What's the fastest way to the vet's?"

"Calling a taxi, probably."

"Can we?"

"Of course." He motioned for me to follow him and cut a path towards a narrow alley between two houses. "Come on."

Even with traffic, we shaved a few minutes off the time it would have taken us on foot, but it still wasn't fast enough. Bard had just gotten out of surgery, and Kane was gone by the time we got there. The secretary behind the desk remembered him—he had just paid the bill for Bard's new teeth. I was still caught up in a mixture of shock and confusion when she handed me a note scrawled on the back of the vet's business card. "From that man," she said.

The only part of it I could read said _01:00_.

"What does it say?" I asked, handing the stiff rectangle of paper over to Li.

"_For the rest of your going away present_, and a time and address."

I took the note back and glared at it. Just thinking about Kane standing where I was now, leaning on the counter as he wrote it, made my heart pound. He must've been tailing me all morning. There was no other way he could have known where Bard was.

"Charlotte, what's going on? Is everything okay?"

I looked at Li then, his face so open and plainly concerned. I supposed it could have been his eyes that made it so easy to trust him—they didn't hide anything, left him exposed—or it could have been what he said back at the ramen house. About the stars. But what I was most intensely aware of at that moment was the fact that there were only two people in the whole of Japan I could go to for help. And Li was one of them.

"That phone call I got was from a Contractor. He was here. He left the note."

"A Contractor," Li repeated. It didn't sound like a question.

The vet's office seemed impervious to the word. The noise from the nervous pets and their impatient owners gathered in the waiting area didn't decrease in volume. Didn't increase, either. Just went on unchanged, keeping up a heavy din I could practically feel pressing into my skin.

"You shouldn't go," Li said. His voice had dropped, taken on a gravelly tone.

"I don't really have a choice."

"Why not?"

I wasn't sure I could explain it—I wasn't even sure I was right. But, whether or not Kane was lying, I knew what he meant for me to understand. "The other half of my going away present." I leaned against the counter. Through the fabric of my jeans, I felt the cold bite of steel press into my hip. "I know what it's going to be."


	6. In Which Bard Observes

A/N: I was going to try to post this on Thanksgiving, but that obviously didn't work out. But it would have been awesome timing, because I want to thank all of you for sticking with this story even though I've been so slow at updating lately. The favs and follows and reviews [aw shucks, you guys!] and even just the views mean a lot and keep me motivated.

TL;DR: Thank you for being such awesome readers!

* * *

Chapter 6: In Which Bard Observes

I started the next day by asking Li for another favor and promising him dinner in return. Bard wasn't particularly thrilled at the prospect of spending another day apart, but his excitement over his new teeth hadn't worn off yet, so he wasn't investing much energy in the half-hearted glares he directed my way.

"You liked Li," I reminded him.

Bard grunted.

I stole a glance at him, my hands freezing halfway through the action of pulling my hair back. For the umpteenth time that morning, I'd decided to change it. I needed something professional looking, but not dour and boring. I'd taken the time to straighten it, but it was too long for me to wear loose, and I didn't want to slick it into a ponytail because I didn't like my scar. The inch-wide crescent of shiny, webbed skin started in front of the top of my right ear and ran to a tapered point just under my jaw. I'd taken to messy braids because the wispy pieces of my hair disguised the scar without getting in the way.

In the end, that was what I settled on: another braid. It would work.

"Yes or no?" I turned to Bard and spread my arms as if I were going on display.

He looked me up and down and nodded. I didn't know why I ever asked him for his opinion on my fashion choices—I always got the same response. The look, the nod, the _I am a dog, I don't wear clothes_ eye roll.

I felt inexplicably relieved when I heard the front door open, soon followed by Jack's heavy footsteps. "Charlie?"

"In here!" I checked myself in the mirror one more time before walking out into the bedroom. He stopped in the doorway. "Does this work?" I asked. "It's not too casual, is it?"

I'd chosen a pair of dark-wash jeans and black flats I could run in; a white, button-down shirt; and a taupe blazer that I was not at all excited about wearing.

"I think you should take it off."

"The blazer?"

"Everything."

I stared at him, slightly horrified by the idea of starting over from scratch, but mostly suspicious. "You just want me to take my clothes off, don't you?"

"It's a compliment." He reclined against the doorframe, crossing his arms as a smirk pulled at his mouth. "You look nice."

"You're wearing a suit."

"I always wear a suit. It's mentioned in the job description and everything."

"I feel like I should be wearing suit."

"You don't need a suit," he said, not quite masking the laugh in his voice. "You'll be in a lab coat half the time, anyway."

"Yeah… Okay." I turned away, nodding in agreement as I distractedly walked back into the bathroom and looked into the mirror one last time. Jack's reflection appeared behind me. The bathroom wasn't exactly lacking in size—like the rest of the apartment, it was spacious and overdone—but the standing area in front of the vanity was narrow enough that Jack had to slip in right behind me.

He rested his chin on top of my head. I scowled at him, though I supposed it wouldn't take but a few seconds to fix my braid if he messed it up.

Our faces juxtaposed like that, I thought we looked like a couple of Matryoshka dolls. We were only slightly different shades of pale, him darker and me lighter, but our hair colors sat on near-opposite ends of the wheat-blonde, black-brown spectrum.

"Do I have to pretend to be British?" I asked his reflection. "Since I'm supposed to be with MI-6?"

"Nah. Misaki knows you're an outside consultant." His head moved up and down like a puppet as he tried to talk without giving up his chin-rest. "Your accent is horrible, anyway."

His eyes creased at the corners with a smile I couldn't quite see because of the angle. I'd always thought they were a particularly icy shade of blue, but I had only recently begun to appreciate the symbolism. My own eyes lacked any sort of color correlation to my abilities or personality—unless I wanted to be generous and say they were gunmetal gray when, in actuality, they weren't dark enough and shone green in certain lights.

My shoulders rose and fell as I filled my lungs and let my breath out in a long sigh. "What time is it?"

"Time to go."

Our reflections parted in the mirror; I turned and followed after him before I had time to think about the sudden, cool emptiness at my back. Bard pushed his nose into my hand as we walked down the hallway to the foyer. I snapped the leash to his collar, grabbed my bag, and locked the door behind us.

"Where's your shadow?" I asked Jack as we piled into the elevator.

"July? Went to Ikebukuro with April."

I raised an eyebrow, teasing. "Left you in the lurch, huh?"

"Not quite." He gave me a pointed look, his mouth turned up at the corners. "Someone had to chaperone you."

"And you drew the short straw." I laughed at his eye-roll—no doubt he'd volunteered for the job. "Am I going to get a codename?"

"I'm not sure there's a unit of time small enough."

"Ouch."

"Kidding. How about Agent Fortnight?" he suggested. I was about to point out that a fortnight wasn't very small when he added, "Or Millisecond. But you're not _really_ an agent, so…"

I uncrossed my arms long enough to punch his shoulder. "Ha ha. Now my ego hurts."

The doors whooshed open and the elevator deposited us on the ground floor. I turned my key in, feeling a ball of tension tighten in my chest. It wasn't that I hadn't given my plan any thought—to the contrary, I'd been too distracted with figuring out what I was going to do to pay much attention to anything else.

What set my nerves on edge was the fact that I didn't know when I'd be back. _If_ I'd be back.

I took a moment to compose myself, forcing my face into a mask of calmness, before turning back to Jack. I hadn't told him about Kane's note. He didn't know. And neither did Bard, for that matter. If they had, between the two of them, I doubted I would've ever made it out of the apartment.

"I'll pull the car around," Jack said.

"Okay. Li should be here any minute."

As Jack walked away, disappearing around the corner of the building, I pulled out my phone and scrolled through my list of contacts. Mostly I just wanted something to occupy my hands so I wouldn't stand there wringing them. But I bit my lip and quickly dropped the phone into my bag when _Restricted Number_ scrolled across the screen.

Bard sat down and stared at me, unblinking. Had he not been so close to eye-level, I might have been able to ignore his curiosity. I retreated from it instead, backing up against the side of the building and tilting my head back against the wall.

Blue sky seared my vision, framed by the gray tops of high-rises and other buildings. Maybe it was the way I was standing, head craned back and eyes staring skyward, that made me think of the stars. The street wasn't as quiet as the rooftop; blocking out the sounds of people and traffic was impossible. _Claustrophobic_ wasn't the right adjective to describe the way the press of noise and activity made me feel, but it was close enough. Before the Gates appeared, thinking about the stars still being up there, temporarily outshone by the sun and hidden behind a screen of blue, might have been comforting. Now I just wondered if the real stars were still up there at all, hidden behind another veil.

"Charlotte?"

I snapped to attention at Li's voice. He was just walking up, hands stuffed into the pockets of his green jacket. The bright afterimage of the sky floated around him like a halo. "Hey. Sorry. Guess I spaced out for a minute…"

He raised a hand to shield his eyes and looked up to see what I'd been staring at. "A little early for stargazing, isn't it?"

"Wishful thinking," I said. "It's weird, but the sun's just going down back home. The stars are coming out."

"You sound a little homesick."

I shrugged and looked at him, at the easy understanding in his eyes, and found myself talking. "Would you believe I haven't been home for almost five years?"

"Why so long?"

"I've been travelling. Everywhere."

He canted his head to the side, a teasing smirk lifting one corner of his mouth. "Doing your shady freelance thing?"

"Something like that," I laughed, but I couldn't sustain my amusement. "I've been looking for something, too."

"What?" When I hesitated, Li's brow furrowed and he glanced up at the apartment building. "Jack?"

"No," I said, some of my levity coming back. My eyes dropped to my hands, watching as I wound Bard's leash through my fingers. "Not Jack. Just something I've needed to do for a long time."

"And you've found it here? In Tokyo?"

"I think so."

Li smiled warmly. "Then I'm happy for you."

I felt my face flush red with embarrassment. Talking. Too much talking. He made it so easy, and all of my thoughts about impending demise weren't helping. "Anyway. Thanks for watching him," I said, smiling self-consciously as I handed over Bard's leash. "I thought about trying to convince the police he's a service dog, but…" I shrugged.

Li laughed. "Didn't see that going so well?"

"Nope."

As if to agree, Bard stood up and grumbled his way from my side to Li's. It caught two stiff-looking businessmen off-guard as they passed, sending the first sidestepping into the street in front of a red sports car. The second man yanked him back onto the sidewalk as the car braked—like a slow motion, near-catastrophe scene out of a bad movie.

"Ah, _gomen_!" Li called after them as they hurried away.

I tried to muster a polite grimace of apology, but I'd spotted Jack sitting behind the wheel of the car, one hand covering his eyes while he shook his head, and I couldn't suppress a snort of laughter. "This is off to a good start."

"Should be an interesting day," Li agreed. He smiled, but his blue eyes were wide, like he wasn't sure what he'd gotten himself into.

"He'll be good. Probably."

Bard stared up at me through his fuzzy eyebrows.

"He knows _sit_, _down_, _heel_, and _don't eat that_, so…"

"I think that covers all the bases."

"Yeah." I took a step back, motioning at Jack waiting in the car. "I've got to get going, but thanks a lot for doing this. I'll call you later and come get him."

"Charlotte, wait."

I turned around when Li took my arm. His expression had changed to something more serious. He wanted to say something, but hesitated.

"What?"

With a short sigh, he let go of my arm. "It's not my business, but… That Contractor." His eyes tightened, reflecting the note of concern in his lowered voice. "You're not going to meet him tonight, are you?"

Bard shot to his feet, this time startling Li with the rumbling growl he directed at me.

I put on my best _of course not_ face and shook my head, hoping it was enough to conceal my internal panic. "Bard, sit. It's all right."

When he didn't sit, I looked at Li and said, "No. I'm not going."

I wanted to believe Bard's reaction was the reason for Li's uneasy frown, but the way he nodded, as if conceding a loss, made me think he suspected a lie.

I forced myself to hold my expression like everything was fine.

The electric _whir_ of a window rolling down sounded behind me, followed by Jack's voice. "Charlie?"

"Just a minute."

Li glanced past me at the car, his eyes darkening. "Just… be safe, all right?"

"Yeah." I nodded stiffly, unsure if I'd just confessed to the lie. Li didn't say anything else, and I reached down to give Bard a head-scratch goodbye. "Be good," I said. "I'll see you later, Li."

Li lifted his hand in a wave and turned away. Bard followed after him, but not before shooting me a suspicious glare. Idly, I wondered if Li was the type to talk to animals—maybe Bard would get the whole story and then some by the time I picked him up. I figured I'd be able to tell by how grumpy he was.

Jack's probing gaze followed me as I got into the car and shut the door. I did my best not to look at him, busying myself with my seatbelt instead.

"Everything all right?" he asked. It sounded perfunctory, like he was asking even though he knew something wasn't quite right. "Bard didn't look too happy with you."

"He's fine. Everything's fine." Figuring I'd look like a liar if I didn't do _something_, I turned to him and smiled. "How long's the drive?"

He didn't smile back—not immediately. Little lines formed around his eyes as they narrowed at me. "Not long." Before he looked away, the corners of his mouth jerked upwards in a parody of a smile. The car's engine rumbled as he shifted gears and pulled into traffic. I pursed my lips and looked out the window.

I felt like I needed to say something—like I needed to make the situation feel normal. "Did you ever remember if you know Li from somewhere?" I asked.

"No," Jack sighed. "Just seems familiar somehow."

"Seems like he remembers you somehow, too."

"What makes you say that?"

"The mutual death glares."

"Ha. I don't have a death glare."

I turned away from the window to stare at him. After a few seconds, he glanced at me sidelong and rolled his eyes.

"You freeze people out. Literally. The other day, it felt like the AC exploded."

"Oh," he laughed. "You noticed that?" Before I could answer, he waved a hand in dismissal and moved on. "That's beside the point anyway. I probably don't know him from anywhere. Some people just look familiar for no reason."

"All right," I conceded, turning back to the window.

"Charlie?"

"Yeah?"

When he didn't say anything, I glanced over at him. But he was looking away. "Nothing," he said. "Never mind."

We met Misaki Kirihara in the lobby of the Tokyo Medical University Hospital. She was wearing a suit. Luckily, I didn't have much time to stress over whether or not I'd underdressed, because Jack decided to introduce me with _Doctor_ in front of my name.

"Charlotte's fine," I quickly corrected. "Nice to meet you."

"Nice to meet you, too," Misaki said, the lenses in her glasses flashing as we shook hands. "Jack's had nothing but good things to say about you. Maybe you can make a dent in this case."

"What is the case, exactly?"

Misaki handed me an inch-thick file with _Classified_ stamped across the front. Naturally, it piqued my interest, and I flipped the file open to the first page. Three names were listed across the top: Rachel Bailey, Nathaniel Clarke, and Robert Martin.

Two things registered, but with different degrees of surprise: First, I would be dealing with people; second, they were English.

"Are these…?" I raised my eyebrows and looked at Jack. He nodded in answer. _MI-6 agents._

"Come with me," Misaki said. "I'll explain on the way."

She led us to a narrow hallway, and then to a small service elevator. Once we'd gotten in and the doors closed, she said, "The names are those of three MI-6 agents. Two of them are dead. The third is here, in a secure ward."

"What happened to them?"

"They were a team," Jack said.

I turned to peer at him, my suspicions confirmed by the _take a wild guess_ look he gave me.

"Two Contractors and a Doll," I said. "Who survived?"

"Nathaniel Clarke. One of the Contractors." Misaki cleared her throat and looked up at the electrical panel, where the numbers were slowly ascending as the elevator hauled us upward. "They were attempting to apprehend a third Contractor. DT-812. But things went sideways, and DT-812 used her power on all three of them."

With the way I suddenly felt short of breath, I felt like I'd just gotten hit in the chest. Ice shot down my spine, and it had nothing to do with Jack's hand on my arm.

"How, um…" I cleared my throat. "How did they die?"

"The Doll, Robert Martin, was pronounced dead at the scene. No obvious wounds, and the autopsy didn't reveal a cause of death. Rachel Bailey died here, twenty-four hours after the altercation. Same story with her autopsy—no COD. I understand the lab has saved blood and tissue samples from both of the deceased agents."

I nodded distractedly. "That'll be helpful. What about Clarke?"

Jack gave my arm a reassuring squeeze before letting his hand drop. "He's been turned into a bit of a pincushion," he said.

Misaki hummed in agreement. "His condition is deteriorating. It's been more than two weeks since the attack. Physically, he's fine, except for a few cosmetic injuries. All of his symptoms are neurological, but the doctors can't figure out what's wrong."

"You said DT-812 used her power on them?" I hedged. "Do you know what it is?"

"She apparently has the ability to transform water into a poison that destroys one of the senses. We weren't able to determine which of the senses Martin and Bailey lost, since Martin was dead, and Bailey never regained consciousness."

"Which of the senses did Clarke lose?"

Misaki turned to me with a serious frown, a wrinkle forming between her eyebrows. "No one's sure. There are a few theories, but I'd prefer to let you form your own without prejudice."

"All right." I nodded and bit my lip. "What about DT-812's remuneration? Could it have something to do with the Doll's death?"

"We aren't sure she has one."

"Is that even possible?"

"Yes. There's at least one other Contractor we're aware of that doesn't have a price—as far as anyone can tell."

"And who's that?"

"The Black Reaper. BK-201."

Head sufficiently spinning, I followed Misaki off the elevator in a daze. Thankfully, her explanation of the case stopped there, giving me some time to regroup. We had to take a detour through the administration office long enough for me to have a clip-on ID made and to put on a lab coat.

Putting on the coat was a strange feeling. Of the two of us, Jack was the only one with an MD—but I didn't think that was something he'd shared with the Japanese Police. And if he'd known all along about Hemlock's connection to this case—and I suspected he had—then he'd done me a favor by keeping his own merits a secret and calling me in as a 'consultant.'

I tucked the file under my arm and tried to walk like I wore a white coat on a regular basis, like I didn't feel out of place, or like my semi-legal freelancing hadn't just landed me under the supervision of a foreign government.

Misaki flashed her badge at the two officers standing guard outside Clarke's hospital room and opened the door. A blast of cold air washed over us, filling the hallway with the smell of soap and sterility. The square, white room was empty of people except for the body in the bed. Nathaniel Clark lay amidst an array of blocky, beeping, whirring machines.

He had a hawkish look to him, sharpened by his dark hair and his dark, analytical eyes. What Misaki had said about him being physically fine seemed to be true, aside from a long, rectangular bandage taped across the top of his left forearm. The only thing about him that struck me were the electrodes pasted to his head.

"Chief Kirihara," he said, his voice hoarse. Probably from lack of use. I didn't think it was odd when he nodded to Jack—I figured they'd met before. But then Clarke looked at me and said, "Doctor Sterne. You got the stain out of your coat."

* * *

Bard missed his sense of smell. However, in a room full of cigarettes, he found he missed it considerably less. He had come to associate smoke with the man who smelled of winter—this was not the reason he disliked the smell. He disliked the smell because of dimethylnitrosamine and quinoline and the other chemicals he couldn't remember. But they all seemed to be very bad.

"That is a dog," the silver-haired girl said as the closed and shuttered the purchase window at the front of the tiny shop. Bard did not know what she smelled like. Tobacco, maybe. But she had not made a horse joke, and, for that, he liked her.

"Yes," said the man who smelled faintly of ozone. Bard remembered him from the airport. Li.

"What's with the dog?" It was another man's voice, but when Bard looked into the far corner of the cigarette shop, where the man should have been, he saw only the Gate Cat. Bard stood up, his tail curled over his haunches, but neither Li nor the girl seemed alarmed by the talking cat.

"Sit."

Bard sat. He looked at Li, trying to ask questions with his eyes. But Li only looked back; he did not understand like Charlie understood.

"I told Charlotte I'd watch him," said Li.

"I didn't realize you even liked dogs."

Bard looked at the cat. _How?_ he wanted to ask. _How do you speak? How do I learn?_

"I don't like cats much better."

The bell on the cat's red collar jingled when the cat stood up and crossed the room. "Love you too, Hei. But shouldn't you be tailing her right now?"

_Tailing_. Bard knew the word. _Following, watching_. He did not understand why Li should have been tailing Charlie. He wondered if it was for the same reason Bard wanted to be with Charlie.

"Yin, is she still with November 11?"

Bard's attention snapped into focus. Concentrating hard, he tried to remember if he had heard Charlie use Jack's code name in front of Li. What reason would he have to know?

"Yes," said the girl, Yin.

Bard did not look away from Li. His expression had changed after leaving Charlie—these were the things Bard noticed about humans. Their changes. Tone, posture, expression. Li's shift from easy-going to weary and pensive had not escaped Bard's observation.

_Why?_ he would have asked. _Why do you feel this way? What are we in this place?_

"She's with that MI-6 agent? Isn't that a bad thing?" The cat sat down, the tip of its tail twitching.

Bard did not move, but he thought about it. They knew November worked for MI-6. This was bad, Bard knew, but there was no action he could take to fix it. Charlie had stopped him from snapping at the cat before. Charlie was not here now, but Li was, and Bard did not know how hurt Li would be if he attacked the Gate Cat. He was melancholy enough already.

But then Li glared at the cat, and Bard thought he would not be so hurt after all.

Begrudgingly, Li murmured, "She's safe with him. Just keep an eye on her, Yin."

"Yes."

"Mao, check the dog."

Bard pinned his ears; he did not like the way that sounded.

"What do you mean _check the dog_?" the cat demanded. "You think he's got a passenger?"

"Maybe. I don't know."

Intrigued, Bard lifted an ear in Li's direction. So he had noticed after all—

"All right." The cat's eyes glowed red, and then Bard lost control of his ears and everything else attached to his body. The sensation lasted only a few seconds before it abruptly evaporated. He sat, disoriented, while his legs tingled with pins and needles. "Roomy," said the Gate Cat. "No one in there except the dog, though."

Li leaned against one of the vertical shelf-supports along the back wall and slid down to the floor, resting his arms across the tops of his knees. Bard slinked across the room and sat next to Li, tail tucked between his legs as he eyeballed the cat. Li tried to swat him away, but Bard did not care. He flashed his titanium teeth and tucked his face behind Li's shoulder.

The cat laughed and asked a moment later, "Any progress? Have you learned anything?"

"She's made contact," Li said. "If not with DT-812, then with someone close to her. Mao—"

"What is it?"

"Are you sure she didn't see my face?"

Bard's ears went up, but he did not come out of his hiding place. The cat made an affirmative, grunting sound. "I watched her the whole time. She didn't look under your mask."

Bard felt Li shake his head. "Why wouldn't she?"

"Who knows? And what does it matter? The important thing is she didn't see your face."

The single door at the back of the shop creaked open; Bard peaked over Li at the squat, unpleasant-looking man who entered. When he noticed Bard's curious stare, he paused in the doorway. In a voice that sounded like he had gargled with nails, he said, "Isn't that the target's guard monster?"

The cat's bell jingled. "Hei is watching him for her."

_Hei_. _Mao_. _Yin_. Bard had to remember all of these names and tell Charlie.

"How nice," said the new man. "I hope you got some information out of it."

"She's going to meet another Contractor tonight. DT-812 might be there."

Bard's muscles went rigid.

"What does Sterne want with her?"

"I don't know yet."

"Well, the important thing is that you get to her first. If Sterne gets in the way, take her out."

Li nodded.

* * *

"You're not the first."

I thought Misaki was probably trying to make the situation seem less strange than it really was, but learning Clarke had explicably known the names of other people he'd never met only made the whole thing even stranger. I'd gone in expecting blindness, deafness, disorientation—not telepathy. Or whatever it was Hemlock had done to him.

"So he knew both of you?" I asked, looking between Jack and Misaki as we walked down the wide, colorless hallway.

Misaki nodded stiffly.

Jack shook his head. "We'd met before, so he remembered. Might have been more interesting if he hadn't."

"I just can't figure out which sense DT-812 went after. It does seem neurological, but it extends beyond the basic senses."

"You mean sight, smell, hearing, taste, and touch," Misaki said. "Are there others?"

"Several. Even those five can be broken down into subcategories," Jack explained. "The ability to distinguish light and color, for instance."

"There are other senses, too. Sensitivity to pain and temperature, mechanoreception, interoception, and exteroception. There's some overlap, but they're still worth looking in to."

Misaki raised her eyebrows. "Right… And DT-812 could destroy those senses, too?"

"I don't know. I suppose it's possible." Possible, yes, but it wasn't something I'd considered before. "Is a copy of all your info on her in here?" I asked, hefting the bulky file she'd given me earlier.

"Everything we know. Doesn't include a name, unfortunately."

I stole a glance at Jack as Misaki flashed her badge at another pair of guards. It seemed nearly every room and major hallway on the floor was under watch. _Her?_ I mouthed at him. One word did nothing for context, but asking _did you get Hemlock's messier code from Misaki_ where any number of armed guards might see felt like a bad idea.

Jack winked in answer, then nodded towards something in front of me. I turned to look and found we'd come up on the lab. The blinds on the double-paned windows were slanted open just enough to provide a partial view of the assortment of equipment inside. Along with two men in lab coats.

"Well. This is where I leave you," Misaki said, gesturing at the laboratory door. "Doctors Pierce and Yamada have been working on the case. They'll get you up to speed. If you need an assistant, that can be arranged, too."

We shook hands one last time. I was just opening the door to the lab when I heard her ask Jack if he had a minute.

The two scientists inside the lab noticed me immediately. One of them—I assumed Doctor Yamada, who seemed to be Japanese—had his gloved hands tucked under a hood, where he was filling an assortment of vials and beakers. He tilted his head at me and went right back to work. The other scientist, Pierce, was more enthusiastic about his welcome. His hair was bright red and curly, and there was a flush to his cheeks as if he were too warm. A small wonder—I could see a turtleneck poking out from under his lab coat.

"You must be Charlotte Sterne!" He pulled off his gloves and crossed the room in three enormous strides. "Pleasure to meet you. I'm Thomas Pierce. That's Jun Yamada," he said, jerking his thumb in his colleague's direction. "Not a big talker."

I put on a polite smile. "I see. Nice to meet you. Where should I…?"

"Pick any workstation you want. All of the samples are in that fridge over there. Did Chief Kirihara brief you on the case?"

"Yes. She, uh…" I held up the file. "She gave me this, actually."

"Perfect. I've got one for you, too."

Surprised—and not all that enthusiastic at the prospect of being handed _more_ paperwork to muddle through—I took the folder of loose paper Pierce retrieved from his desk when he held it out to me.

"It's all of our findings so far. Might help you pick a starting point."

"Thanks. I'll start reading it." It wasn't as thick as Misaki's file, but I had a feeling I'd be spending more time studying the lab results than anything else. "You mind if I get a few samples ready for later?"

"Go ahead."

I offered up another smile before setting my files down and pulling out a pair of gloves from a dispenser on the wall.

"Ah. Lab accident?"

I glanced over my shoulder and raised my eyebrows.

"Sorry," Pierce said, spreading his hands. A little jolt of anxiety ran through me when he pointed at the side of his face. "Your scar. Looks like an acid burn."

"Oh." The gloves made sharp, snapping sounds as I adjusted them on my fingers. "Yeah, it is."

"I've got one on my hand." Pierce lifted the edge of one of his gloves to show me the splotchy scar extending across the back of his hand to his wrist. It looked familiar, and not in a good way. "Sulfuric," he said. "What flavor's yours?"

"Not sure. Probably sulfuric, too." I walked the short distance to the fridge and reached inside to pull out Clarke's blood sample. "Someone threw it at me."

I didn't turn around to see Pierce's expression, but the few seconds of stunned silence that followed my admission was enough for me to hazard a guess at what his face looked like. "Wow. I'm, uh…" He cleared his throat. "That really sucks."

"Yeah." I shrugged, frowning at the nearly empty vial of blood. "Could have been worse."

"Right. Sorry. Uh, I suppose I should show you around."

"That's okay." I put the sample back and turned around. "Just show me where the centrifuge is. I'm going to go get a new sample from Clarke."

"It's on the other side of that partition." Pierce pointed across the room. "I was told you're a toxicology specialist. Thought you'd be with MI-6."

"Just helping them out," I said.

"You must be in good with one of the higher ups," Pierce said. He sat down on a wheeled stool and kicked himself towards his workstation. "We don't usually bring in outsiders. Talented or not."

He was smiling, but I wasn't sure if it was supposed to be an insult or a compliment. The only thing I could think to say was, "I'll do my best." Then I quickly grabbed a needle and an infusion set. And left.

I tried to put the whole thing out of my mind. I wanted to focus on Clarke—find out what he knew about Hemlock. It was my bad luck that he seemed to have gone mute when I returned to his room. The guards only glanced at my nametag before granting me access; Clarke didn't turn at the sound of the door opening. He was staring out the window.

"Nathaniel?"

No reaction. I walked to his bedside, thinking proximity might make him register my presence, but he gave no indication that he was aware of me. His eyes were focused, his brow slightly furrowed as if in concentration. I used my hand to shield his eyes from the light for a few seconds before pulling back and watching his pupils contract. Normal.

I sat down and pulled his arm towards me. "Nathaniel, I'm going to take a blood sample now."

Still no reaction.

I went through with the procedure, waiting for him to say something, but he never did. So, for almost ten minutes after, I sat in the chair next to his bed just to see what would happen.

All of his attention was on the window. I toyed with the idea that he was having some kind of seizure, but it didn't quite fit. His pupils were reactionary and there were no muscle contractions. He just wasn't there.

Vials of blood in hand, I stood up to return to the lab.

Jack was standing in the hallway with two Styrofoam cups of coffee. "No dice?"

"No. Seems like he's out for the moment." I shook my head. "Let me drop these off. I'll be right back."

I hurried to the lab and quietly slipped in, waving at Pierce's head-nod. Yamada didn't notice. I put the vials in the centrifuge and turned it on, filling the room with a quiet hum. It would take the machine at least fifteen minutes to finish fractionating the blood. I grabbed my files of paperwork before leaving again.

"Is there anywhere we can go without being watched?" I asked when I took one of the steaming cups from Jack.

"Sure. Come on."

We didn't speak again until we were inside a very large, very empty conference room. The lights were off, but the room was bright with sunlight streaming in the floor-to-ceiling windows spanning the east wall. A pristine whiteboard covered the opposite wall, and a long, wooden table dominated the floor space. Of more than a dozen chairs, we chose the two farthest away from the door and sat down.

"What do you think so far?" Jack asked.

"I _do not_ miss awkward lab interactions. Pierce asked about my scar." I gripped the Styrofoam cup in both hands and let out a long breath. "They don't know about my connection to her, do they?"

Jack's shoulders stiffened. "No. And as long as they don't know her name, they won't."

Reassured, I set my coffee aside and flipped open Misaki's file. "They have anything on her we don't?"

"Nothing."

I nodded, sighing as I thumbed through seemingly endless pages of notes and reports about Bailey, Martin, and Clarke; their attempt to apprehend DT-812; the unspectacular results of the two autopsies; the theories the other scientists had come up with to explain Clarke's affliction; all the information they had on DT-812.

"So MI-6 has been looking for her. And now the Japanese Police are looking for her, too. She's gotten popular."

"The organizations find her ability intriguing."

"Was MI-6 trying to recruit her?"

Jack frowned and shook his head. "I don't know. They wanted to _capture_ her, but that could mean the same thing. If they found her ability useful, it's logical that they'd try to utilize it."

"So it's a race now." I closed the file and looked up at him. The way the sunlight hit his eyes made them seem to glow. "I have to get to her first."

"We," Jack corrected. "_We_ have to get to her first."

I pursed my lips and looked away.

* * *

After Jack left, I returned to the lab just long enough to move Clarke's new blood samples from the centrifuge to the fridge. Then I went back to the conference room to study the pages and pages of information I'd need to review before starting any experiments of my own. That was how my day went. Hour upon hour of reading and deciphering text, putting the story together, analyzing test results, figuring out what Hemlock could have done to Clarke and his teammates.

I explained all of this to Jack when he called at eleven that night, wondering if I was still picking through the files. I was. But, an hour earlier, I'd started studying something else, too.

A map.

I'd picked out the shortest route from the hospital to the address Kane had written down in his note. A web search had revealed it was a recently foreclosed warehouse on the edge of Shinjuku. I was going to leave the hospital at eleven-thirty to find it. I told Jack I still had a lot of reading to do and probably wouldn't get back till sometime after midnight.

Something in his voice made me hesitate. I thought back to our conversation in the car, to the way it had ended, and felt the two were connected. But I didn't know how, and I didn't know how to ask what was wrong. So I went through with the lie and ended the call feeling like I'd left too much unsaid.

I still hadn't finished going over Pierce and Yamada's test results when I gathered up all the papers and stuffed them back into their files. But it was time for me to leave.

* * *

For most of the day, Bard had been concentrating on acting like a normal dog. He was pretending to be asleep when the silver-haired girl spoke for the first time in hours.

"She's moving."

Without a word, Li stood up and left.

* * *

I'd given myself more time than necessary to find the warehouse. It wasn't as close to the Wall as the one where I'd first met Kane, but that wasn't to say it was in a better location. The area around the Wall had the advantage of being abandoned. Here, on the outskirts of Shinjuku, people lingered in the shadows. I averted my eyes, kept my head down, and walked quickly, always keeping my hand on one of my guns.

I wasn't expecting to find the warehouse so quickly. The map I'd printed out and memorized had seemed much more complicated than the path I'd taken, but I knew this had to be the right one.

Two wolfhounds paced outside the entrance, hulking shadows under a flickering streetlight. When they alerted to my approach and barked a warning, a third shadow, this one human, walked out of the warehouse and stood under the light.

"You're early. How prudent of you."

"Is she here?" I stopped twenty feet away, hands shoved into my pockets like I was cold.

"She's here."

My heart leaped into a sprint; my chest tightened and, for a second, I couldn't breathe. _She's here. She's here._ I gritted my teeth and hoped I could trust my voice. "Prove it."

"Gladly," he said. "Hand over your weapon first."

"You're dreaming."

Kane tilted his head to the side as if he found me amusing. When one of the dogs growled, he swatted both of them away. They retreated through the half-open door and disappeared. For an uncomfortably long time, Kane and I stared at each other. He broke first.

"I don't have my katana."

"Good to know. But I still want to see her."

"Let's see that gun."

Scowling, I pulled the modified twenty-two from the waistband of my jeans and locked the slide back. When Kane motioned for me to approach, I did. Slowly. My eyes darted between him and the door. A rectangle of light shimmered on the ground, but I couldn't see far inside the warehouse.

When Kane and I were no more than five feet apart, I stopped and waited. Noticeably absent his hakama and haori, some of his bulk had evaporated, but he still towered over me. My hackles rose at the predatory gleam in his black eyes.

He reached behind him and gave the door a push. Like drawing back a stage curtain, it revealed a large, brightly lit room with a concrete floor and cinderblock walls. I saw the dogs first, one sitting on her right, the other standing on her left. Her gray, delicate hands on their heads. Her swamp-green eyes glimmered over a familiar, saccharine smile. Her hair, lighter than I remembered, fell straight to her shoulders. Like a veil.

_Transparent_. That was the word I thought of. She looked transparent under the lights, like a ghost.

Kane's hand closed around the stock of the twenty-two. I let him take it. I was already pulling my revolver free with my other hand. Before he knew what was happening, I shoved the barrel under his chin and pulled the trigger.

* * *

A/N: Holy cliffhanger, Batman!

So, I definitely went out on a limb by venturing into Bard's POV in this chapter. I'm planning to have other chapters like this one—unless it didn't work and nobody likes it. I just felt like I needed to shed some light on what's going on with Hei's team while Charlie is off attempting science. Please let me know your thoughts!

Look for the next update mid-December. I've got final papers and exams coming up, so Charlie and the gang won't be getting much attention till that mess is over with.

In addition to the upcoming chapter, be on the lookout for a holiday surprise! :)


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